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The Jews in America 



A SHORT STORY OF THEIR PART IN 
THE BUILDING OF THE REPUBLIC 



Commemorating the Two Hundred and Fiftieth 
Anniversary of Their Settlement 



BY 

MADISON C. PETERS, D.D. 



THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 

PHILADELPHIA 
CHICAGO 1905 TORONTO 



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copyrightkd 1905 

By 

The John C. Winston Co. 



PREFACE 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES in his 
"Over The Teacups," says: "If the 
creeds of mankind would try to under- 
stand each other before attempting mutual ex- 
termination, they would be sure to find a meaning 
m beliefs which are different from their own." 
Christians have many things in common with the 
Jews. We can readily agree with Lessing, when 
he makes the Christian monk say to the Jewish 
Nathan : 

Heaven bless us! 
That which makes me to you a Christian 
Makes you to me a Jew. 

It was said of Sydney Smith that he would not 
read a book which he was to review, — reading it 
might prejudice his judgment. When Charles 
Lamb was berating an enemy, some one said to 
him, " Why, you don't know him." Lamb re- 

3 



PREFACE 

plied, " I don't want to know him, for fear I 
should like him." 

Christians and Jews make ignorance of each 
other a claim for judgment, and seem, to be afraid 
to become acquainted for fear that they might like 
each other. 

Few Christians know the relatively enormous 
part taken by the Jews, emancipated but a few de- 
cades, in the civilization of mankind. Lord Bea- 
consjfield, when taunted in the House of Lords for 
his Jewish extraction, exclaimed, " I can well af- 
ford to be called a Jew." When the modern Jew 
enlightens himself upon the achievements of his 
■race, practises the virtues and avoids the faults of 
his ancestors, he will prepare the way for a glori- . 
ous future for himself and his descendants. 

When an impartial historian shall write the 
wonderful achievements of the geniuses who pro- 
duced our civilization, Jewish names will be found 
on every page, and the Jewish people might well 
take to heart Goethe's true lines : 

Willst du immer weiter schweifen? 
Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah. 

4 



PREFACE 

This brief story of what the Jew has done for 
America is written in commemoration of the 250th 
anniversary of the settlement of the Jews in Amer- 
ica, and is intended for popular use. It is a book 
of facts rather than opinions. It puts into brief 
space for the busy reader some facts the American 
public should know. The book is written with 
the hope that it may modify the views which the 
Gentile world holds with regard to the position of 
the Jew, and the Author's fervent prayer is that 
its facts may lead Christians to grant to the pos- 
session of the Jew, the mental, moral, social and 
spiritual qualifications which history affirms. 

Special attention is given to the Jew as a pa- 
triot. Renan said, " A Jew will never be a pa- 
triot ; he will simply live in the cities of others." 
This implies that the Jew is never a patriot. Such 
in substance is the indictment brought against the 
race by the anti-Semites of Europe and America. 

Descent from the Jewish stock determines, with 
the author, who is to be regarded as a Jew. The 
almost incredible narrow-minded illiberality and 
antagonism to Jewish interests, of which the 

5 



PREFACE 

modern anti-Semites are still giving the world 
too frequent and too infamous exhibitions, ac- 
counts, for instance, for the descendants of Moses 
Mendelssohn naving abandoned Judaism and 
professed Christianity. Such eminent men as 
Heine, Moscheles, Joachim, Rubinstein, Disraeli, 
Herschel, and other distinguished English, Ger- 
man, Polish, Hungarian and Russian-Jewish mu- 
sicians, poets, painters, litterati, scientists and 
statesmen, finding that faithfulness to their ancient 
creed would interfere with the free exercise of 
their professional career, renounced its practice 
and professed the dominant religion of their na- 
tive countr3^ This, at once, removed every ob- 
struction, all restriction and the religious 
prejudice, from which they would otherwise have 
suffered. 

I have gathered the facts for these chapters 
from every available source. I wish to acknowl- 
edge my indebtedness to the Hon. Simon Wolf, 
whose " Jew as an American Citizen, Soldier and 
Patriot" gives nearly 8,000 names of Jews who 
served on both sides in the Civil War. 

6 



PREFACE 

The author has incorporated some of the best 
things from the original edition of " Justice to 
the Jew," and the " Jew as a Patriot," and besides 
he has added much new material. The most 
painstaking care possible has been exercised to 
verify every statement and to bring all the facts 
and figures down to date. 

The author is conscious that what he has writ- 
ten gives but a meagre though general idea of 
what the Jew has done for America. If what he 
has written will remove prejudice, and lead to 
justice, the author v/ill feel well repaid for the 
labor involved in this refined study of history. 

Madison C. Peters, 
New York, Oct. i, ipo^. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter I. 
Jews in the Discovery of America. 

Not Isabella's Jewels, but Jews, the Real Finan- 
cial Basis of the First Expedition of Columbus. 
Dr. Kayserling's Investigations. Emilio Castelur 
quoted. Without the Scientific Achievements of 
the Jews, Columbus' Wonderfully-planned Voy- 
ages would have been impossible. The First 
White Man to Set Foot on American Soil a Jew 15 

Chapter II. 
Jewish Pre-Revolutionary Settlements. 

First Arrival in Amsterdam. Governor Peter 
StU5rvesant's Persistent Hostility. Denied Civil 
and Religious Liberty Under the English. Roger 
Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty in 
America, attracting the Jews to Newport. The 
Early Jews in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, 
Savannah, Boston, etc 27 

Chapter III. 
Jews in the Wars of the Republic. 

New York the First State Actually Granting 
Full Religious Liberty to the Jews. The Part 
the Jew took in the Colonial Cause prior to the 

II 



Revolutionary War. Haym Salomon and other 
Jews who Sacrificed their Fortunes for Indepen- 
dence. Noted Hebrews who Served with Dis- 
tinction Throughout the Revolutionary War, 
and the War of 1812. Jewish Patriotism in the 
Mexican War. Honorable Record in the Regu- 
lar Army and Navy. The Conspicuous Part 
which the Jews took in the Civil War. Jews 
and the American Anti-Slavery Movement. Jews 
who Served in the American Armies during the 
War with Spain ...... 39 

Chapter IV. 
The Je^v in American Politics. 

Jewish Congressmen and United States Sen- 
ators. Judges and Diplomats. Other Jewish 
OfEce Holders and their Power for Good in 
Political Life .65 

Chapter V. 
The Jew^ in Finance. 

Jews not so Rich as Popularly Supposed. The 
Part of the Jews in rearing the Great Metro- 
politan Centres of Commerce . . . .75 

Chapter VI. 
Jews in the Arts and Sciences. 

America's Poets, Dramatists, Novelists, Paint- 
ers, Musicians, Editors, and Professors of the 
Jewish Faith. Jewish Inventors, Doctors and 
Jurists 85 

12 



Chapter VII. 
The Number of Jews in the United States 

Jewish Emigration. Population in Time of 
Revolutionary War. In Time of Civil War. 
Population by States. Population the World 
Over. Population by Continents and Countries 95 

Chapter VIII. 
Characteristics of the Jew^s. 

Longevity; next to the Quakers, Jevv^s are the 
Longest Lived People on Record. Why the 
Jews are less subject to Consumption, etc. A 
Law-abiding People. The Tew in Charity. The 
World's Debt to the Jew for the Bible . . 103 

Chapter IX. 
Anti-Semitism in America. 

The Jew does not Receive the Treatment he 
Merits as a Man, even in America. Samples 
of Injustice. The Jew is what we Made him. 
The Prejudice that exists Against Him must be 
Traced to this Leading Cause: One is Made 
Responsible for All and All are Made Responsible 
for One. The Anti-Semite is a coward. The 
cry of a Jew Hater is the Cry of the Beaten 
Man. Why the Jew Wins . . . .123 



JS 



The Jews in America 
I 

JEWS IN THE DISCOVERY 
OF AMERICA 

THE great majority of Americans, Jews and 
non-Jews, are but little acquainted with the 
part the Jews played in the discovery and 
early settlement of the United States. With the 
same hand and the same pen, and on the same 
day, on which Ferdinand and Isabella signed that 
infamous edict, which drove more than two hun- 
dred thousand Jews from the land of their birth, 
because they declined to have Christianity forced 
upon them, they also signed the articles of agree- 
ment that authorized Cristobal Colon, as the 
Spaniards called Columbus, to go forth in search 

15 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

of another world, where, in the words of Castelar, 
the distinguished Spanish pubHcist, " Creation 
should be new-born, a haven be afforded to the 
quickening principle of human liberty, and a 
temple be reared to the God of enfranchised and 
redeemed conscience." 

Dr. Moses Kayserling, of Buda-Pesth, for 
years the acknowledged master of Spanish-Jewish 
history, has made a thorough search of the Span- 
ish archives and records, including those of the 
Inquisition, which had never before been open 
to such a Jewish investigator. The result is his 
valuable work, entitled " Christopher Columbus 
and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish 
and the Portuguese Discoveries." Although an 
English translation has been published, the work 
is so heavy and so specialized that very few 
people seem to have read the book. Since that 
time, the late Prof. Herbert B. Adams, in one of 
the valuable series of historical studies published 
by the Johns Hopkins University, has said, " Not 
Jewels, but Jews, were the real financial basis of 
the first expedition of Columbus." 
i6 



IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

Dr. Kayserling has, beyond a doubt, pointed 
out that two Marranos, or secret Jews, Luis de 
Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez — the former 
the chancellor of the royal household and comp- 
troller-general in Arragon, and the latter chief 
treasurer of Arragon — enormously rich mer- 
chants, who enjoyed the favor of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, supplied the funds needed to fit out 
Columbus' caravels. Isabella did not sell her 
valuable jewels to fit out Columbus for his voy- 
age. It is generally supposed that she had al- 
ready pawned or sold them to defray the expenses 
of the wars then devastating her country. Dr. 
Kayserling clearly shows that the jewel story is 
false and mythical, — a fact previously proved by 
another Jew, that great authority on Columbus, 
Henry Harrisse. Justin Winsor, in his " Chris- 
topher Columbus," has this to say of the jewel 
story : " But Harrisse finds no warrant for it, 
and judges the advance of funds to have been 
made by Santangel from his private revenues and 
in the interests of Castile only. And this seems 
to be proved by the invariable exclusion of 

17 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Ferdinand's subjects from participating in the 
advantages of trade in the new lands, unless an 
exception was made for some signal service. 
This rule, indeed, prevailed even after Ferdinand 
began to reign alone." Dr. Kayserling cites high 
Spanish authority from original account-books 
and records, and narrates Santangel's interview 
with the Queen as follows : " Santangel, the 
story continues, was much delighted at the 
Queen's resolve, and declared that it was not 
necessary for her to pledge her jewels ; he would 
be pleased, he said, to advance the money neces- 
sary for the expedition, and would be glad of 
the opportunity to perform so small a service for 
her and for his master the King." Columbus' 
son, Fernando, and Oviedo give similar accounts 
of the interview. Dr. Kayserling continues : 
" At that time neither Arragon nor Castile, 
neither Ferdinand nor Isabella, had at their dis- 
posal enough money to equip a fleet. Santangel, 
who was always ready to oblige the Crown, ad- 
vanced 17,000 florins — nearly 5,000,000 mara- 
vedis. The Queen's jewels were not demanded 
18 



IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

as security; all of them were not, in fact, in her 
possession at that time, for she had pledged her 
necklace during the late war. Santangel's extra- 
ordinary services in this matter are clearly demon- 
strated by the excessive praise which Ferdinand 
accorded his ' well-beloved ' Luis de Santangel, 
and by the many proofs of gratitude which the 
King gave him. That he advanced this money 
out of his own pocket is proved beyond question 
by the original account-books which were former- 
ly in the archives of Simancas, and which are still 
preserved in the Archivo de Indias in Seville. In 
the account-book of Luis de Santangel and the 
treasurer, Francisco Pinelo, extending from 1491 
to 1493, Santangel is credited with an item of 
1,400,000 maravedis which he gave to the Bishop 
of Avila for Columbus' expedition. In another 
account-book, that of Garcia Martinez and Pedro 
'de Montemayor, there is the following item: 
'Alonso de las Calezas, treasurer of war in the 
bishopric of Badajoz, by order of the Archbishop 
of Granada, dated May 5, 1492, paid to Alonso 
de Angelo for Luis de Santangel, the King's 

19 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

escribano de racion, whose authorization was pre- 
sented with the aforesaid order, 2,640,000 mara- 
vedis, to wit, 1,500,000 in payment to Isaac Abra- 
vanel for money which he had lent their Majesties 
in the Moorish war, and the remaining 1,140,000 
maravedis in payment to the aforesaid escribano 
de racion of money which he advanced to equip 
the caravels ordered by their Majesties for the 
expedition to the Indies, and to pay Christopher 
Columbus, the admiral of that fleet.' On May 20, 
1493, on which day Ferdinand was particularly 
occupied with Columbus and his expedition, the 
King ordered his treasurer-general, Gabriel San- 
chez, to pay 30,000 florins gold to ' his beloved 
councillor and escribano de racion, Luis de San- 
tangel.' This sum certainly included the re- 
mainder of the loan." 

Emilio Castelar, the Spanish statesman and 
orator, already quoted, has given us the facts, as 
to Columbus' long and futile efforts to interest 
the Spanish sovereigns in his project, as well as 
to Columbus' actual departure from the Spanish 
Court, discouraged and turning to France: 
20 



IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

" Quintanilla had opened to Columbus the path- 
way to the court, Santangelo (as Castelar names 
Luis de Santangel) opened the road to Palos. Of 
a family of converts, himself but recently a Chris- 
tian, one of those antique Jews who have so 
greatly helped to enlighten the Christian world, 
like the Caragenas of Burgos, for instance, he 
joined, as is the nature and tendency of his race, 
the love of the ideal, appropriate to the prophets 
divinely inspired of the Lord, to the reflective 
calculations of the schemer and the mathematician. 
It is a historical fact that one day Ferdinand V., 
on his way from Arragon to Castile, and needing 
some ready cash, as often happened, owing to 
the impoverishment of those kingdoms, halted his 
horse at the door of Santangel's house in Calata^ 
yud, and, dismounting, entered and obtained a 
considerable sum from the latter' s inexhaustible 
private coffers. He must have enjoyed great 
power, for although some of his near kinsfolk 
took part in the immolation of Pedro Arbues, the 
first inquisitor, who was slain in the cathedral of 
Saragossa in the frenzy of a popular uprising, no 

21 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

harm came to Ferdinand's treasurer, neither did 
he fall from royal favor nor incur the usual pen- 
alty of infamy. As soon as Santangelo heard 
of the flight of Columbus he went to the Queen's 
chamber and implored her to order him to return, 
being supported in this by the Marchioness of 
Maya. And when the Queen complained of the 
exorbitant demands of the discoverer, he reminded 
her that the cost would be but a trifling considera- 
tion if the attempt succeeded, and if it failed could 
be reduced to next to nothing. When to this 
cogent reasoning the Queen objected the empti- 
ness of the Castilian treasury and the need of 
again pawning her jewels to raise the means, San- 
tangelo unhesitatingly assured her of the flourish- 
ing state of the Arragonese finances, doubtless be- 
cause of the revenues yielded by the expulsion of 
the Jews, and of the resources there available, 
promising at the same time to win over the per- 
plexed and inert mind of Ferdinand the Catho- 
lic. Thereupon messengers were sent post-haste 
who stopped Columbus at a neighboring bridge 
some two leagues away, and made him turn back 

2.2 



IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

to Granada, where, in April, 1492, the articles 
of agreement known as the capitulations of Santa 
Fe were signed, granting Columbus all he asked." 
The maps, which Columbus used, were drawn 
up by Jafuda or Jehuda Cresques, known also as 
Mestre Jaime Ribes, the " Map-Jew," or " Com- 
pass-Jew," who was director of the Portuguese 
Academy at Sayres and instructor in the art of 
navigation and the manufacture of nautical instru- 
ments and maps, while he made many improve- 
ments in the compass and in the application of 
astronomy to navigation, which alone made pos- 
sible Columbus' wonderfully well-planned voy- 
ages. Columbus derived much value from the 
astronomical tables of Abraham Zacuto. These 
tables were translated from the Hebrew into Latin 
and Spanish by Joseph Vecincho, Zacuto's 
pupil, another Jew, distinguished as a physi- 
cian, cosmographer, and mathematician; and 
it was he who presented a copy to the Genoese 
navigator, which Columbus found of great service 
on his voyages. This copy, with notes and glosses 
in Columbus' handwriting, still exists in Spain. 
23 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Without these Jewish inventions, the discoveries 
of Columbus would have been impossible. 

Columbus wrote : " I have had constant rela- 
tions with many learned men, clergy and laymen, 
Jews and Moors and many others." In his will, 
Columbus refers to one of these Jews, whose iden- 
tity is unknown. Washington Irving says that 
this legacy of a half-mark of silver to a poor Jew 
who lived in Lisbon was probably a trivial debt of 
conscience or reward for some service received. 

Rodrigo Sanchez, a cousin of Gabriel Sanchez, 
was designated to accompany the expedition as 
veedor, or superintendent, at the special request 
of Queen Isabella. The ship-physician, Maestre 
Bernal, the surgeon, Marco, and a sailor, Alonso 
de la Calle, were Jews. It was a Jew, Rodrigo 
de Triana, who first saw the land, and another 
Jew, Luis de Torres, taken along because he un- 
derstood Hebrew, Chaldee, and some Arabic, as 
interpreter in the Oriental lands which Columbus 
expected to reach, who was the first white man 
to set foot on American soil, having been sent 
ashore to greet the Grand Khan of India, whose 

24 



IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

country Columbus believed he had reached by a 
new route. Torres was also the first European to 
discover the use of tobacco. 

Columbus in his Journal, writing of his first 
voyage of discovery as coincident with the 
expulsion of the Jews from Spain, has the 
following suggestive sentence : " So after hav- 
ing expelled the Jews from your dominions, 
your Highnesses, in the same month of Jan- 
uary, ordered me to proceed with a suffi- 
cient armament to the said regions of India." 
Castelar, commenting on this point, writes : " It 
chanced that one of the last vessels transporting 
into exile the Jews expelled from Spain by the 
religious intolerance of which the recently created 
and odious Tribunal of the Faith was the embodi- 
ment, passed by the little fleet bound in search 
of another world. As though the sun were not 
to shine for all, as though the will of Heaven 
had not made us equal, the assured spirit of reac- 
tion was wreaking one of its stupendous and fu- 
tile crimes in that very hour when the genius of 
liberty was searching the waves for the land that 

25 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

must needs arise to offer an unstained abode for 
the ideals of progress. Following their narrow 
views, the powers of the Middle Ages denied 
even light and warmth to the Jews at the same 
time that they revealed a new creation for a new 
order of society, that was predestined by Provi- 
dence to put an end to all intolerance, and to 
dedicate an infinite continent to modern democ- 
racy." 



26 



II 



JEWISH PRE-REVOLUTIONARY 
SETTLEMENTS 

THERE seems to be evidence that Jews, sol- 
diers and sailors, reached New Amster- 
dam, as New York City was then called, 
as early as 1652, having been sent here by the 
directors of the West India Company. It has 
been suggested that the Amsterdam merchants 
came over with special grants of rights and priv- 
ileges from the Dutch West India Company, in 
which Jews were heavily interested as stockhold- 
ers, and which is said to have had some Jewish 
directors. 

The first Jewish settlers In New Amsterdam 
whose names have been handed down, were Jacob 
Barsimson and Jacob Aboaf, who arrived on No 

37 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

vember 9th, 1654, in the ship " Pear Tree." They 
were followed in the same year by a party of 23 
who arrived in the bark " St. Catarina," from 
Brazil (the part of America first inhabited by a 
large number of Jews), abandoning Brazil when 
the Dutch evacuated that country, and once again 
in all possible haste they sought the shelter of a 
Dutch colony. Upon arrival their goods were 
seized and sold at public auction for the payment 
of their passage, and the amount realized by the 
sale being insufficient, the master of the vessel 
applied to the court for an order that two of the 
new arrivals as principals, be held as hostages un- 
til the full amount was paid. Accordingly David 
Israel and Moses Ambrosius were placed under 
civil arrest, pending payment in accordance with 
the debtors' laws of that day. 

The following spring other Jews arrived and 
the expulsion of the Jews from Brazil increasing 
the Jewish residents in New York gave ground 
for the belief that their number would grow enor- 
mously. The bigoted Governor, Peter Stuy- 
vesant, requested the director of the West India 
28 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 

Company in Amsterdam that " none of the Jewish 
nation be permitted to infest the New Nether- 
lands." The answer was worthy of tolerant Hol- 
land — that his request "was inconsistent with 
reason and jiistice." Incensed at Stuyvesant's 
unwarranted assumption of authority, an act was 
passed permitting the Jews to reside and trade in 
New Netherlands, " so long- as they cared for their 
own poor." If those narrow-minded old burghers 
could see how well the Jews kept their promise, 
they would open their eyes in surprise at the many 
magnificent benevolent institutions, covering every] 
conceivable case of need and suffering, which tes- 
tify to the inborn kindness of the Hebrew's heart. 
The Jews of New York alone for their twelve 
leading charities are now contributing upwards of 
$1,000,000 a year. 

In 1656 D'Andrade was denied the privilege of 
holding real estate. During the same year the 
governor through the council, which he absolutely 
controlled, as well as the burgomasters, refused 
De Lucena permission to prepare a burial-ground 
for the Jews. A few months later this decision 
29 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

was revoked. An interesting example of the 
" good old times " is the fact that the Pilgrim 
Fathers appealed in vain to the Dutch government 
for permission to settle in its American domains 
before the Plymouth settlement was made. 

In 1664 the city was captured by the English, 
and its name changed to New York in honor of 
the Duke of York. The charter of liberties and 
privileges adopted by the Colonial Assembly in 
1683 extended religious freedom to all but Jews, 
and the Mayor and the Common Council of New 
York in 1685, considering the Jews' petition " for 
liberty to exercise their religion," referred to 
them by Governor Dongan, decided that no 
" public worship is tolerated by act of assembly, 
but to those that profess faith in Christ, and 
therefore the Jew's worship was not to be al- 
lowed." 

When James, Duke of York, became King 
James II., Governor Andros, who succeeded Don- 
gan, was instructed to "permit all persons, of 
whatever religion, freedom to worship," and we 
find in 1695 a synagogue (on the north side of 

30 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 

Mill Street, a street no longer in existence) which 
may have been built as early as 1691, for a his- 
torian of this period speaks of the Jews as one of 
the sects, and then adds that each sect had its 
church. 

The prohibition against the Jews going into 
retail trade, which was a Dutch law which some- 
how remained operative under English law, was 
gradually dropped, for we find Jews engaged in 
retail trade in the early part of the eighteenth 
century. One of the great merchants of this 
period (about 1768 to 1790) was Hayman Levy, 
who traded with the Indians, and an historian of 
that day claims that he was " actually worshipped 
by the red man." John Jacob Astor acquired his 
first experience in the fur trade while in Levy's 
employ. Upon his books are entries of moneys 
paid to John Jacob Astor, for beating furs at 
$1.00 per day. Nicholas Low, ancestor of Seth 
Low, served as Levy's clerk for seven years, and 
then laid the foundation of his great fortune in 
a hogshead of rum purchased from his former 



31 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

employer, who besides rendered him substantial 
assistance. 

On a question concerning the contested seat 
of Colonel Frederick Phillips of Westchester 
County, the general assembly of New York, on 
September 23rd, 1737, resolved that Jews could 
neither vote for representatives nor be admitted 
as witnesses. 

The Jews of New York were not on a footing 
of political equality with Christians prior to the 
Revolution. By the first constitution of the 
State of New York, adopted in 1777, they were 
put on an absolute equality with all other citi- 
zens, New York having been the first State actu- 
ally granting full religious liberty. 

Bancroft has referred to Maryland as among 
the first colonies which " adopted religious free- 
dom as the basis of the State." But its religious 
freedom was limited to those within the province 
who believed in Jesus Christ, and was accom- 
panied by a proviso which declared that any per- 
son who denied the Trinity should be punished 
with death. Maryland therefore was no place for 

Z2> 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 

the Jew. Even after the Revolution, though un- 
der the Constitution of the United States, a Jew 
was eligible to any office, no one could hold any 
office under the government of Maryland without 
signing a declaration that he believed in the Chris- 
tian religion. This disability was not removed 
until February 26th, 1825, when the legislature 
finally passed the bill according to the Jew his full 
civil rights. 

From the period of the riot, in 1749, " directed 
against a Jew and his wife," according to Gov- 
ernor Clinton's report to London, to the Revolu- 
tion, there was but little increase in the Jewish 
population in New York. A few additions were 
made by immigration from England, but not suf- 
ficient to counteract the emigration to Charleston, 
Philadelphia and especially to Newport. At- 
tracted by the tolerance of Roger Williams, a 
fugitive himself from persecution, and disheart- 
ened by Stuyvesant's persistent persecutions, 
many Jews made thdr way to Newport as early 
as 1657, and for twenty years preceding our 
Revolutionary War, Newport was one of the prin- 

33 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

cipal cities in the American colonies, in commer- 
cial importance ranking with Boston and Phila- 
delphia, for Edward Eggleston tells us that " he 
was thought a bold prophet who then said that 
' New York might one day equal Newport,' " for, 
about 1750, New York sent forth fewer ships than 
Newport, and just half as many as Boston. It 
was the fair treatment of the Jews under Roger 
Williams, the pioneer of religious liberty, which 
caused the Puritan, Cotton Mather, in his '* Mag- 
nalia " to characterize Newport as " the common 
receptacle of the convicts of Jerusalem and the 
outcasts of the land." 

An occasional Jew may have strayed into other 
parts of New England, but the Puritans had no 
use for the Jew — unless he became a convert. 
The best known of the early settlers was Judah 
Monis, who embraced Christianity and filled the 
chair of Hebrew in Harvard College from 1722 
until his death in 1764. 

The first documentary evidence regarding the 
settlement of Jews in Philadelphia dates from the 
year 1726, although it is known that Jews settled 

34 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 

in Schaefersville, Lancaster, York and Easton as 
early as 1655. In 1662 the Mennonites drew up 
articles of association, their object " being to es- 
tablish a harmonious society of persons of differ- 
ent religious sentiments, it was determined to 
exclude from it all intractable people, such as 
those in communion with the Roman See; usuri- 
ous Jews; stiff-necked English Quakers; Puri- 
tans; foolhardy believers in the millennium, and 
obstinate modern pretenders to revelation." Evi- 
dently there were Jews in Pennsylvania at least 
twenty-five years prior to the landing of William 
Penn. 

It is likely that Maryland was the first colony 
in which Jews settled, though they were probably 
only stragglers, they seem to have arrived shortly 
after the establishment of the provincial govern- 
ment in 1634. As early as 1657 Dr. Jacob Lum- 
brozo was settled there and letters of denization 
were issued to him September 10, 1663. He had 
a plantation, and also practised medicine. 

On the 7th of July, 1773, a party of forty Jews 
sailed up the Savannah River on a vessel direct 

35 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

from London, arriving in the very midst of a 
public dinner given by Oglethorpe, who had as- 
sembled the colonists for the purpose of allotting 
to each settler his proportion of land, and of or- 
ganizing a local government. 

In spite of much determined opposition to the 
newcomers, the benevolent Oglethorpe befriended 
the Jews, wrote to England praising their enter- 
prise and worth, calling special attention to one 
of their number. Dr. Nunes, for his attention to 
the sick, and other valuable services. Another 
of their number was Abraham de Lyon, a horti- 
culturist, who was the first in this country to in- 
troduce successfully useful foreign plants. 

It was the industry and intelligence of the Jews, 
and the subsequent arrivals of a few Moravians 
and Highlanders from Scotland, who made a suc- 
cess of Oglethorpe's scheme, for it is a well 
known fact that the colonists were idle, dissolute, 
mutinous and unwilling to protect the colony from 
the Spaniards, who threatened its destruction. 

With the departure of Oglethorpe from Geor- 
gia, and on account of the persistent hostility of 

36 



PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 

the trustees of the London Company, subject not 
only to civil disabilities, but with the rest of the 
population, to unreasonable demands, many Jews 
gradually moved from Savannah, and settled in 
the rising city of Charleston. 

On the following day, the Jewish New Year, 
1750, the first Hebrew congregation was formed 
in Charleston. During the struggle for Independ- 
ence the Jews of Charleston, as elsewhere noted, 
distinguished themselves by their patriotism; not 
a single Tory was found among them. In 1816 
Charleston numbered over 600 Jews, then the 
largest Jewish population of any city in the 
United States; to-day it has about 2,000, a pro- 
portion smaller than in 1816; this is owing to the 
fact that the city is no longer the commercial cen- 
tre it was before the war. 



57 



Ill 

JEWS IN THE WARS OF 
THE REPUBLIC 

THE Non-Importation Resolutions in 1765, 
the first organized movement in the agita- 
tion for separation from the mother coun- 
try, — a document still preserved in Carpenter's 
Hall, Philadelphia, contains the following Jewish 
names : Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, Joseph 
Jacobs, Hayman Levy, Jr., David Franks, Ma- 
thias Bush, Michael Gratz, Bernard Gratz, and 
Moses Mordecai. 

In 1779, a corps of volunteer infantry com- 
posed chiefly of Hebrews under command of Cap- 
tain Lushington, was raised in Charleston, South 
Carolina. These soldiers afterward fought with 
great bravery under General Moultrie at Beaufort. 
39 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

The decision, reached in New York, in 1770, 
to make more stringent the Non-Importation 
Agreement which the colonists had adopted to 
bring England to terms on the taxation question, 
had among its signers Samuel Judah, Hayman 
Levy, Jacob Moses, Jacob Meyers, Jonas Phillips, 
and Isaac Seixas. 

At a time when the sinews of war were essen- 
tial to success, Haym Salomon, of Philadelphia, 
the countryman and intimate associate of Pulaski 
and Kosciusko, responded to Robert Morris's ap- 
peal with $300,000; and it is variously estimated 
that he gave, all told, $600,000, not a penny of 
which has ever been repaid to the heirs of the 
philanthropist and patriot. 

The late Judge Charles P. Daly (" History of 
Jews in North America," page 58) summarizes 
the character of Haym Salomon thus : " He was 
a man of large private fortune, engaged in com- 
mercial pursuits, of great financial resources and 
ability, and of the highest personal integrity. He 
espoused the cause of the Colonies with great 
ardor, and supplied the government from his own 
40 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

means with a large amount of money at the most 
critical periods of the struggle. As appeared 
from documentary evidence afterward submitted 
to Congress, he advanced to the government al- 
together $658,007.13, an enormous sum at that 
period for a private individual, when all com- 
merce and business were prostrated. 

" But in addition to this he supplied delegates 
to Congress and officers of the army and of the 
government with the means of defraying their 
ordinary expenses, among whom were Jefferson, 
Madison, Lee, Steuben, Mifflin, St. Clair, Wilson, 
Monroe, and Mercer." 

After reciting Salomon's unselfish patriotism in 
refusing all interest or recompense, of his capture 
by the British, and of his long imprisonment in 
New York in a jail called the Prevot, Judge Daly 
says : " He died before he had taken any steps 
to secure a reimbursement by the government of 
the large amount he had loaned it, and left a wife 
and four small children, to use the language of 
the Congressional report, * to hazard and neglect.' 
Applications have been made to Congress by his 

41 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

heirs for the repayment of the amount loaned, or 
at least for some part of it. These applications 
led to the most thorough searches in the archives 
of the government and among the papers of 
Robert Morris, but nothing was found showing 
that any portion of the amount had ever been re- 
paid. Madison in 1827 urged that the memorial- 
ists might be indemnified, and reports in their 
favor have frequently been made by Congressional 
committees, but down to 1864 not a dollar had 
been repaid to them — a fact, I regret to say, 
which affords support to the oft-repeated observa- 
tion of the ingratitude of republics." 

Down to 1905 nothing has been paid to the 
heirs of Haym Salomon. 

Jared Sparks wrote many years ago that Salo- 
mon's associations with Robert Morris "were 
very close and intimate, and that a great part of 
the success that Mr. Morris attained in his finan- 
cial schemes was due to the skill and ability of 
Haym Salomon." 

The late Prof. Herbert B. Adams and Dr. Hol- 
lander, both of Johns Hopkins University, have 
42 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

shown that Salomon was the negotiator of the 
war subsidies obtained from France and Holland, 
which he endorsed and sold in bills to the mer- 
chants in America at a credit of two or three 
months " on his own personal security," withput 
the loss of a cent to the country and receiving only 
one quarter of one per cent, and that he was ap- 
pointed by the French government paymaster- 
general of the troops in America, which trust he 
executed free of charge. 

The secret support of Charles III. of Spain is 
alleged to have been due partly to his efforts. He 
maintained from his own private purse Don Fran- 
cisco Rendon, the secret ambassador of that mon- 
arch, for nearly two years, or up to the time of 
Mr. Salomon's death. 

On the accession of the Count de la Luzerne 
to the embassy from France, Mr. Salomon was 
made the banker of that government. A letter 
from Count de Vergennes, the Foreign Minister, 
to De la Luzerne, ambassador to this country, 
states that in two years 150,000,000 livres were 
disbursed in this country through Mr. Salomon. 

43 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

But Haym Salomon was not the only Jew, who 
sacrificed his fortune for independence, for we 
find that among the signers of the bills of credit 
for the Continental Congress, in 1776, were Ben- 
jamin Levy of Philadelphia and Benjamin Jacobs 
of New York. Samuel Lyon of New York was 
among the signers of similar bills in 1779. Isaac 
Moses, of Philadelphia, contributed $15,000 to the 
Colonial Treasury, and Herman Levy, another 
Philadelphian, repeatedly advanced considerable 
sums for the support of the army in the field. 
Manuel Mordecai Noah of South Carolina not 
only seryed in the army as an officer on Wash- 
ington's staff, and likewise with General Marion, 
but gave $100,000 to further the cause in which 
he was enlisted. 

Cyrus Adler has called attention to the follow- 
ing incident. His Information was based on an 
unpublished letter of Jared Sparks : " At the out- 
break of the Revolutionary War a Mr. Gomez, 
of New York, proposed to a member of the Con- 
tinental Congress that he form a company of 
soldiers for service. The member of Congress 

44 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

remonstrated with Mr. Gomez on the score of 
age, he then being sixty-eight, to which Mr. 
Gomez replied that he * could stop a bullet as well 
as a younger man.' " 

Among the patriots of the South none worked 
more unselfishly than Mordecai Sheftall, " Chair- 
man of the Rebel Parochial Committee," organ- 
ized to regulate the internal affairs of Savannah 
and composed of patriots, opposed to the royal 
government, and who, after active hostilities were 
begun in the South, was appointed Commissary- 
General to the troops of Georgia in July, 1777, 
and soon thereafter was also appointed commis- 
sary to the Continental troops; and when the 
British attacked Savannah in December, 1778, 
Sheftall's name appears not only foremost among 
the patriot defenders of that city and as one who 
advanced considerable money to the cause, but as 
one who was placed on board the prison ships be- 
cause of his refusal to flock to the royal standard. 
In 1780, when the British authorities passed the 
disqualifying act, we find the name of Mordecai 



45 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Sheftall near the head of the list with the most 
prominent patriot names of Georgia. 

Colonel Isaac Franks became aide-de-camp to 
\\'ashington, holding the rank of colonel on his 
staff, and served with distinction throughout the 
war. ]\Iajor Benjamin Nones, a native of Bor- 
deaux, France, who came to America in 1777. 
served on the staffs of both Lafayette and Wash- 
ington. He entered service imder Pulaski, as a 
private ; and, as he writes, " fought in almost 
every action which took place in Carolina, and in 
the disastrous affair of Savannah shared the hard- 
ships of that sangT-iinary day." He became major 
of a legion of four hundred men. attached to 
Baron de Kalb's command and composed in part 
of Hebrews. And when the brave De Kalb fell 
mortally wounded. !Major Nones, Captain Jacob 
de la Motta, and Captain Jacob de Leon carried 
their chief from the field. 

Colonel David S. Franks of IMontreal openly 

sympathized with and aided the Americans under 

Generals JMontgomery and Arnold during their 

invasion of Canada, and was forced to flee from 

46 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

Canada in 1776, when the American forces aban- 
doned the country. The name of David S. 
Franks appeared on Governor Carleton's Hst of 
twenty-nine prisoners, sent to the British min- 
istry early in 1777, "being the principal persons 
settled in the province who very zealously sei-ved 
the rebels in the winter of 1 775-1 776, and fled 
upon their leaving it." Franks, who left Canada 
with the intention of joining the American army, 
although his course in this matter resulted in 
heavy pecuniary losses in his business affairs and 
also alienated him from his father, became aide- 
de-camp to Arnold, the intrepid, zealous, and able 
soldier that he was, until jealousy, extravagance, 
and spite led him to take up the traitor's role. 
Franks gave testimony to Mrs. Arnold's inno- 
cence of all complicity in her husband's treason. 
Suspicions were aroused against Franks on ac- 
count of Arnold's treason; nevertheless, after a 
searching inquiry into his conduct, he was not 
only acquitted, but he was sent to Europe with 
important dispatches to Jay and Franklin, with 
instructions to await their orders. In a letter 

47 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

from Robert Morris to Franklin, dated Philadel- 
phia, July 13, 1781, we read: "The bearer of 
the letter, Major Franks, formerly an aide-de- 
camp to General Arnold, and honorably acquitted 
of all connection with him after a full and im- 
partial inquiry, will be able to give you our public 
news more particularly than I could relate them." 

Philip Moses Russell, in the spring of 1775, en- 
listed as a surgeon's mate under command of Gen- 
eral Lee. After the British occupation of Phila- 
delphia in September, 1777, he became surgeon's 
mate to Surgeon Norman of the Second Virginia 
Regiment. Russell went into winter quarters 
with the army at Valley Forge, 1 777-1 778. 
Sickness forced him to resign in August, 1780. 
He received a letter of commendation from Gen- 
eral Washington " for his assiduous and faithful 
attentions to the sick and wounded." 

Solomon Bush, Emanuel de la Motta, Benja- 
min Ezekiel, Jason Sampson, Colonel Jacob de la 
Motta, Ascher Levy, Nathaniel Levy, David Hays 
and his son, Jacob, Reuben Etting, Jacob I. 
Cohen, Major Lewis Bush, Aaron Benjamin, 

48 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

Joseph Bloomfield, Moses Bloomfield, Isaac Israel, 
and Benjamin Moses are the names of a few of 
the other Jews who distinguished themselves upon 
the battle-fields of the Revolution. 

The commemoration of the first battle-field of 
the Revolutionary War was made possible 
through a Jew. Upon learning that Amos Law- 
rence of Boston had pledged himself to give $io,- 
ooo to complete the Bunker Hill monument, if 
any other person could be found to give a like 
amount, Judah Touro, of New Orleans, who came 
to the aid of Andrew Jackson during the memora- 
ble defense of that city, immediately sent a check 
for the amount. In the History of the Bunker 
Hill Monument, which was published by George 
Washington Warren, appears the following 
tribute to Judah Touro : " He was one of that 
smallest of all classes into which mankind can be 
divided — of men who accumulate wealth with- 
out ever doing a wrong, taking an advantage, or 
making an enemy; who become rich without be- 
ing avaricious ; who deny themselves the comforts 
of life that they may acquire the means of pro- 

49 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

moting the comfort and elevating the condition 
of their fellow men." At a dinner given at Fan- 
euil Hall on June 17, 1843, ^o celebrate the com- 
pletion of the monument, the two great bene- 
factors of the association were remembered by 
the following toasts : 

" Amos and Judah, venerated names, 
Patriarch and Prophet press their equal claims ; 
Like generous coursers running ' neck and neck/ 
Each aids the work by giving it a check. 
Christian and Jew, they carry out one plan, 
For though of different faiths, each is in heart a 
Man/' 

The War of 1812 

One of the most distinguished soldiers in the 
War of 1812 was Brigadier-General Joseph 
Bloomfield. Colonel Nathan Myers, Samuel 
Noah, Captain Meyer Moses, Judah Touro, Lieu- 
tenants Isaac Mertz, Benjamin Gratz, David 
Metzler and Adjutant Isaac Meyers, are a few of 
the Jewish names on the roll of iionor in our sec- 
ond war with England. 

50 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

The Mexican War 

At the time of the Mexican War, in 1846, the 
Jewish population was perhaps 15,000. General 
David de Leon twice took the place of command- 
ing officers who had been killed or disabled by 
wounds, and twice received the thanks of the 
United States Congress for his gallantry and 
ability. Surgeon-General Moses Albert Levy, 
Colonel Leon Dyer, quartermaster-general under 
General Winfield Scott, Lieutenant Henry Seelig- 
son, who was sent for by General Taylor and by 
him complimented for his conspicuous bravery at 
Monterey, Major Alfred Mordecai, Sergeant 
Jacob Davis, Sergeant Samuel Henry, and Cor- 
poral Jacob Hirschborn are a few of the sons of 
Israel who left valuable evidences of their patriot- 
ism in the Mexican War. 

In the Regular Army and Navy 

From the earliest period of the republic to the 
present time the Jew has been a conspicuous figure 
in our regular army and navy; and, in every 

51 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

branch of the service, he has made an honorable 
record. 

Major Alfred Mordecai is a recognized au- 
thority in the military world, in the field of 
scientific research, and in the practical applica- 
tion of mechanical deduction to war uses. His 
son and namesake has been an instructor at West 
Point and is inspector of ordnance, holding the 
rank of Colonel, being attached to the Ordnance 
Office in Washington, D. C. 

Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, at the time of 
his death, 1862, was the highest ranking officer 
(flag officer) in our navy, and upon his tomb- 
stone at Cypress Hills is recorded this fact, " He 
was the father of the law for the abolition of the 
barbarous practice of corporal punishment in the 
United States Navy." 

In the Civil War 

In the Civil War, the part the Jew took is so 
conspicuous that it is difficult to pick out the most 
prominent men in the conflict. Mayer Asch, 
Nathan D. Menken, and Louis H. Mayer served 

52 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

on the staff of General Pope, Mayer serving also 
with Generals Rosecrans and Grant. Dr. Morris 
J. Asch served on the staff of General Sheridan. 
Major Lully, who during the Hungarian Revolu- 
tion served on Kossuth's staff, rendered valuable 
service under the direction of the Secretary of 
War. Captain Dessauer, killed at Chancellors- 
ville, and Newman Borchard served on the staff 
of General Howard. Max Cornheim and M. 
Szegley served on the staff of General Sigel. 

Jewish staff officers in the Confederate army 
and navy are equally conspicuous, showing the 
spirit of Hebrew loyalty to conviction. Hon. 
Simon Wolf (to whom the writer is indebted for 
many of these facts, and whose elaborate volume 
led him to pursue the subject to the fullest extent 
possible) tells us that North Carolina sent six 
Cohen brothers, South Carolina five Moses broth- 
ers; Georgia Raphael Moses and his three sons; 
while yet another Moses brother came from Ala- 
bama; Arkansas furnished three Cohen brothers ; 
Virginia sent out three Levy brothers ; Louisiana's 
muster-rolls also contain three brothers of the 

53 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

same name ; while still another trio of Goldsmiths 
went forth from the South, two from Georgia and 
one from South Carolina. Mississippi provided 
five Jonas brothers, Edward, fighting in the 
Fiftieth Illinois against his four Confederate 
brothers, one of whom was Benjamin F. Jonas, 
former United States Senator from Louisiana. 

On the Union side New York alone furnished 
1,996 soldiers, among them the five Wenk broth- 
ers. Colonel Simon Levy and his three sons — 
Captain Benjamin C, Lieutenant Alfred, and 
Captain Ferdinand, former Register of New York 
City. The Feder brothers also came from New 
York. From Ohio, which furnished the next 
largest quota, 1,004, in the War for the Union, 
we have the three Koch brothers ; while Pennsyl- 
vania, which sent 527 Hebrews, also sent three 
Jewish brothers Emanuel. Thus, fourteen Jew- 
ish families sent 53 men to both armies; and ac- 
cording to Mr. Wolf, 7,884 Jewish soldiers served 
in the Union and Confederate armies during the 
Civil War, although there were only 150,000 
Jews in the country at that time. 

54 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

Among the Hebrew officers in the Union army 
who achieved high distinction I may mention 
Frederick Knefler, a native of Hungary, who at- 
tained the highest rank reached by any Hebrew 
during the Civil War. He enlisted as a private 
in the Seventy-ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, 
and fought his way up to the colonelcy of his regi- 
ment, soon rising to the rank of brigadier-general, 
and then brevet major-general for meritorious 
services at the battle of Chickamauga. He 
fought gallantly in all the principal battles of the 
Army of the Cumberland, under Generals Rose- 
crans, Thomas, and Grant, and took part in all 
the conflicts of Sherman's resistless march to the 
sea. 

Edward S. Solomon, colonel of the Eighty- 
second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, fought at 
Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary 
Ridge, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and through- 
out all the campaign in the Southwest, and was 
brevetted brigadier-general. He was for four 
years governor of Washington Territory by the 
appointment of President Grant. 

55 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Leopold Bliimenberg, a Baltimore merchant, a 
native of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, decorated for 
meritorious service rendered the Prussian army 
in the Prussian-Danish war of 1848, abandoned 
his business when Fort Sumter was fired upon, 
and helped to organize the Fifth Regiment, Mary- 
land Infantry, of which he was appointed major. 
His regiment was engaged in the battle of An- 
tietam under him as colonel. He was brevetted 
brigadier-general, and died in 1876, the result of 
the wound that he had received at Antietam. 

Philip J. Joachimsen organized the Fifty- 
ninth New York Volunteer Regiment, and 
went to the front with it as colonel. A fall 
from his horse disqualified him for military 
duty. He rendered great services, while stationed 
at Fortress Monroe, as United States paymaster, 
and for his assistance to General B. F. Butler at 
New Orleans, Governor Fenton of New York, in 
acknowledgment of his eminent services, ap- 
pointed him brevet brigadier-general. 

Colonel Marcus M. Spiegel, of the One Hun- 
dred and Twentieth Ohio Infantry, who died be- 

56 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

fore he could receive the promotion to a brigadier- 
generalship, for which his superior officers recom- 
mended him for bravery at Vicksburg and Snaggy 
Point ; Max Einstein, colonel of the Twenty-sev- 
enth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers ; Col- 
onel Max Freedman, of the Fifth Pennsylvania 
Cavalry; Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Moses, of 
Sickels' Brigade; Isaac Moses, adjutant-general 
of the Third Army Corps of the Army of the Po- 
tomac ; Colonel H. A. Seligson, of Vermont ; 
Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold C. Newman, to whose 
dying bed President Lincoln brought his commis- 
sion promoting him to the rank of brigadier-gen- 
eral; Colonel Ansel Hamberg, of the Twelfth 
Pennsylvania Infantry; Abraham Hart, brigade 
adjutant-general of the Seventy-third Pennsyl- 
vania Infantry; Elias Leon Hyneman, of the Fifth 
Pennsylvania Cavalry; Captain Joseph B. Green- 
hut, of Illinois, who owns the controlling interest 
in the Siegel-Cooper Co, ; Lieutenant Max Sachs, 
who was killed at Bowling Green; Adolph A. 
Meyer, Inspector-General, by special appoint- 
ment of President Lincoln, transferred from New 

57 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Mexico to Pennsylvania; David Manheim, col- 
onel First N'evada Cavalry ; Herman Bendell, sur- 
geon Eighty-sixth New York Infantry, brevetted 
lieutenant-colonel for meritorious and honorable 
conduct; Adjutant Abraham Cohn, of New 
Hampshire ; Captain A. Goldman, of Maine ; Ser- 
geant Leopold Karpelles, of Massachusetts; Ser- 
geant Major Alexander M. Appel, of Iowa; 
David A. Brauski, Henry Heller, Abraham Gum- 
wait, and Isaac Gans, of Ohio, are a few of the 
Jews who distinguished themselves upon the bat- 
tle-fields of the War for the Union. 

Major-General O. O. Howard, after speaking 
of one of his Jewish staff officers as being " of the 
bravest and best," and of another killed at Chan- 
cellorsville as being " a true friend and a brave 
officer," and highly praising two Jewish brigadier- 
generals, said : " Intrinsically there are no more 
patriotic men to be found in the country than 
those who claim to be of Hebrew descent and who 
served with me in parallel command or directly 
under my instructions." 



58 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

Jews and the American Antislavery 
Movement 

In the political movements for the abolition of 
slavery, the Jews took a leading part in creating 
public opinion. As early as 1853, a fugitive 
negro, arrested by a United States marshal, was 
liberated by a crowd of citizens, led by Michael 
Greenbaum ; and, on the evening of the same day, 
a big meeting was held tO' ratify that act. The 
first official call to organize the abolition move- 
ment was signed by George Schneider, Adolph 
Loeb, Julius Rosenthal, Leopold Mayer, and a 
cigar-dealer, named Hanson — four Jews among 
the five leaders of the German population of Chi- 
cago in a great political movement. 

In the columns of the New York Tribune 
Michael Heilprin, who had previous to his coming 
to America shown his love of liberty as a mem- 
ber of Kossuth's civil staff during the Hungarian 
Revolution, vigorously exonerated the Old Testa- 
ment from favoring slavery. Dr. Edward 
Moritz, of the Philadelphia Demokrat; Rabbi 

59 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Samuel M. Isaacs, as preacher and editor of the 
Jewish Messenger; Rabbi Liebman Adler, in De- 
troit ; Dr. Horwitz, in Cleveland ; and Dr. Felsen- 
thal, in Chicago, were sowing the seeds of liberty. 

Rabbi Sobato Morals, on account of his anti- 
slavery sentiments, was elected an honorary mem- 
ber of the Union League Club of Philadelphia, aji 
honor shared with Rev. Dr. David Einhorn, who, 
in 1856, came to pro-slavery Baltimore from Aus- 
tria, where his temple had been closed against 
him byJJae imperial government on account of his 
alleged revolutionary utterances. From the 
sacred desk of the Har Sinai congregation, with 
fiery eloquence, and in his Sinai, a German 
monthly, in unanswerable arguments, Dr. Ein- 
horn poured forth shot and shell from the Old 
Testament armory into the ranks of the advo- 
cates of slavery and the time-serving attitude of 
the churches, until driven out of the city and 
his return prohibited under martial law. 

Dr. Einhorn, in Baltimore and later in Phila-- 
delphia, did as much as any man of his day to 
create the public sentiment which shivered that 
60 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

colossal iniquity. In New York, Judge Philip J. 
Joachimsen, as Assistant United States District 
Attorney, vigorously prosecuted certain slave- 
dealers. Moritz Pinner, on January i, 1859, be- 
gan the issue of an abolitionist paper, the Kan- 
sas Post, at Kansas City. As delegate to the 
National Republican Convention, he with other 
Jews, like Judge Dittenhoefer of New York, 
worked earnestly among the Germans for the 
nomination of Abraham Lincoln. 

The Spanish-American War 

The lezuish Year Book for 1901 has had the 
records of the War Department searched, and 
publishes the names of over 4,000 Jewish sol- 
diers, w^ho served in the American armies during 
the war with Spain. , The first man to volunteer 
was a Jew, and the first American to be killed in; 
battle was a Jew. So eager were the Jews 
to prove their loyalty to the United States that 
5,000 Jews of New York offered their services to 
the Governor, through Nathan Strauss, and as the 
then chaplain of the Ninth Regiment, N. G. N. Y., 
61 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

the writer can testify to the eagerness with 
which the Jews came to enHst and demonstrate 
their patriotism when war was declared. A care- 
ful perusal of the rolls by States, as published in 
the Jewish Year Book, ought to be sufficient evi- 
dence to refute the assertion made by certain un- 
informed and prejudiced persons that the Jew- 
ish people were not patriotic Americans. The 
slur upon the patriotism of the Jew cannot hold 
up its head in the presence of the records of the 
War Department, which ratified more than 4,000 
furloughs, which were granted to such soldiers 
as desired to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom 
Kippur at home. 

"When war was declared," Captain A. W. 
Murray says, " the Jewish press throughout the 
country reminded their people of the wanton per- 
secution of the Hebrews by Spain, covering many 
years. They had been driven from their country 
and deprived of their property by the cruel, un- 
just Spaniards. The young Hebrew men did 
not require urging. Their love for America 
alone was enough, and they flocked to the stand- 
62 



IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 

ard of liberty, the Stars and Stripes." The first 
man to fall in the attack on Manila was Ser- 
geant Maurice Justh, of the First California Vol- 
unteers (which regiment numbered lOO Jews). 
Theodore Roosevelt, the intrepid leader of the 
Rough Riders, declared that in that brave regi- 
ment, which has challenged the admiration of the 
world, the most astonishing courage was dis- 
played by the seven Jewish Rough Riders, one 
of whom became a lieutenant. 

The Astor Battery numbered ten Jews among 
their ninety-nine men. Fifteen Jews went down 
to death in the Maine, destroyed in the harbor 
of Havana; and there was not an engagement 
during the war with Spain, in which Hebrews did 
not take part. Many Jewish names appear on 
the list of killed and wounded, while the much- 
maligned Russian Jews furnished more than 
double their share of volunteers. Commander 
Adolph Marix, of the navy, a Hebrew, was Judge 
Advocate of the Maine Disaster Board of In- 
quiry, and many cases could be cited where 
Americans of Hebrew extraction performed gal- 

63 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

lant and meritorious service under the flag in 
Porto Rico, Cuba, and in the PhiHppines — fight- 
ing as bravely as did their fathers before them 
at Leipsic and Waterloo; under Kossuth and 
Garibaldi ; before Sadowa and Sedan ! 



64 



IV 

THE JEW IN AMERICAN 
POLITICS 

PERHAPS the first Jew elected to office in 
this country was Colonel Frederick Phil- 
lips, of Westchester County, who was 
elected to the General Assembly of New York. 
On September 23, 1737, the General Assembly 
resolved that Jews could neither vote for repre- 
sentatives nor be admitted as witnesses. Colonel 
Phillips was denied his seat. 

Jewish Congressmen 
Israel Jacobs was the first Hebrew member of 
Congress from Pennsylvania, 1791 to 1793. 
David S. Kauffman, after serving as speaker of 
the Texas Assembly, represented his State in Con- 
gress from 1847 to 1857. In 1845, Lewis C Le- 

65 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

vin was sent to Congress from Philadelphia, and 
was twice re-elected. Meyer Strouse was Con- 
gressman from Pennsylvania, 1848 to 1852, and 
Philip Phillips from Alabama, 1853 to 1855. 
Emanuel B. Hart, of New York, was elected to 
Congress in 1857; after serving his first term 
he was made Surveyor of the Port of New York. 
Henry M. Phillips, of Philadelphia, in his day one 
of the best constitutional lawyers in this country, 
was elected to Congress in 1856. Leonard Mey- 
ers, of Philadelphia, represented the Third Dis- 
trict from 1863 to 1875. Meyer Strouse, of 
Pottsville, Pennsylvania, served in Congress 
from 1863 to 1867; Edwin Einstein, of New 
York City, from 1879-81. Isidor Strauss, one 
of New York's public-spirited citizens, was sent 
to Congress in 1892, declining a re-election. 
Among other Jewish Congressmen may be 
named Leopold Morse of Boston; Nathan 
Frank of St. Louis ; Adoph Meyer of Louisiana ; 
Jefferson M. Levy, Mitchell May, Montague 
Lessler, Henry M. Goldfogle and Lucius M. Lit- 
tauer of New York ; Martin Emerich of Illinois ; 
66 



IN AMERICAN POLITICS 

Julius Kahn of San Francisco, and Isidor Rayner 
of Baltimore, former Attorney-General of Mary- 
land and counsel for Rear-Admiral Schley, 
whose three hours' speech at the close of the in- 
vestigation made him nationally famous as an 
orator, the mingled irony, invective, lively humor 
and passionate appeal recalling the fervid periods 
of Henry, Calhoun, and Clay. 

In the United States Senate 

Judah P. Benjamin, who declined President 
Pierce's offer of a judgeship on the Supreme 
Court Bench on account of his extensive private 
business, but who, in 1852, was chosen United 
States Senator from Louisiana, was the ablest 
legal advocate slavery ever had. On one occa- 
sion, he appeared against Daniel Webster in the 
United States Supreme Court. Webster talked 
for three hours and made one of his finest efforts. 
Then came Benjamin, a little weazened, dried-up 
man, with a thin and hollow voice, and talked for 
twenty minutes, when the Chief Justice turned to 
his colleagues and whispered : " Great heavens ! 

67 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

that little man has stated Webster out of court in 
twenty minutes." 

On his withdrawal from the United States Sen- 
ate, on February 4, i860, he was at once ap- 
pointed Attorney-General in the Provisional gov- 
ernment of the Southern Confederacy. In the 
following August he was appointed Acting Secre- 
tary of War; subsequently he became Secretary of 
State, which position he held until the downfall of 
the Southern Confederacy. He was, In truth, the 
brains of the Southern Confederacy. 

When Richmond fell, Benjamin fled with other 
members of the Cabinet. He was separated from 
them and escaped from the East Coast of Florida 
tO' the Bahamas in an open boat. From there he 
made his way to Nassau, reaching Liverpool in 
1865. He had little money. He was fifty-five 
years old. He entered Lincoln's Inn as a student, 
having previously devoted himself to English law. 
In the following summer he was called to the bar. 

London refused tO' notice him. He turned to 
journalism to make a living. His " Treatise on 
the Law of Sale of Personal property " is to-day 
68 



IN AMERICAN POLITICS 

the authority on the subject in English law. 
Then the fame and practice of Benjamin grew 
rapidly. He was recognized at the time of his 
death as the leader of the English bar, and one of 
the great legal minds of the world. When fail- 
ing health compelled him to retire, in 1883, a 
great banquet was given him in the hall of the In- 
ner Temple in London, where gathered all the 
foremost men in England — a tribute such as few 
men have ever received. 

Other Jewish United States Senators have been 
David L. Yulee of Florida, B. F. Jonas, from 
Louisiana, Joseph Simon of Oregon, and at pres- 
ent Isidor Rayner of Maryland. Joseph Selig- 
man declined, for personal reasons, the Secretary- 
ship of the Treasury in President Grant's cabinet, 
and Isidor Strauss declined the Postmaster-Gen- 
eralship in President Cleveland's cabinet. 

Jewish Judges 

The following are some of the Hebrews who 
have held important judgeships: Moses Levy, 
whose admission to the Bar of Philadelphia dates 

69 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

back as far as March 19, 1778, after occupying 
various offices became Presiding Judge of " the 
District Court for the City and County of Phila- 
delphia." The first Jew to hold a judicial posi- 
tion in Philadelphia was Isaac Miranda, in 
1727. Mayer Isaac Franks has been men- 
tioned as a judge of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
sylvania, but the exact time when he served 
cannot be determined. Among the most honored 
Judges of Philadelphia to-day is Mayer Sulz- 
berger. 

Franklin J. Moses (1804-77) was Chief Jus- 
tice of South Carolina, Solomon Heydenfeldt was 
Justice of the Supreme Court of California in 
185 1. Among the Supreme Court judges of 
New York, we can recall Joseph E. Newburger, 
W. N. Cohen, David Levintrit, Samuel Green- 
baum and Alfred Steckler. Among the judges 
of minor courts may be mentioned Simon M. 
Ehrlich, Leo C. Dessar, Joseph H. Steiner, Her- 
man Joseph and Leon Sanders. 



70 



IN AMERICAN POLITICS 

Jewish Diplomats 

During the first decade of the present century, 
Solomon B. Nones was Consul-General to Portu- 
gal. President Madison appointed Mordecai M. 
Noah, Consul-General to Tunis. Colonel Max 
Einstein was appointed by President Lincoln, 
Consul at Nuremberg, Germany. B. F. Peixotto 
was Consul at Lyons during the administrations 
of Presidents Hayes, Garfield and Arthur. Mar- 
cus Otterbourg, of New York, was the first He- 
brew to occupy the high office of Envoy Extraor- 
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico. 
Oscar Straus was President Cleveland's and Pres- 
ident McKinley's Minister to Turkey. Solomon 
Hirsch was President Harrison's Minister to 
Turkey. 

Robert Etting, of Philadelphia, first captain of 
the Independent Blues in 1798, was appointed by 
President Thomas Jefferson United States Mar- 
shal for the State of Maryland in 1801. 

By appointment of President Pierce, Isaac 
Phillips was made General Appraiser of the Port 

71 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

of New York, a position which he occupied for 
fifteen years. Colonel Louis Fleischner and Ed- 
ward Hirsch have been State Treasurers of Ore- 
gon. B. Goldsmith and Philip Wasserman have 
been mayor of Portland, Oregon. Edward Kan- 
ter has been State Treasurer of Michigan. Jacob 
H. Hollander, of Johns Hopkins, was Treasurer 
of Porto Rico, and organized the treasury de- 
partment and devised and introduced the present 
revenue system of the island. Morris Cohen, of 
Arkansas, whose " Introduction to the Study of 
the Constitution " forms part of the historical 
publications of Johns Hopkins University ; Julius 
Fleischman, who became Mayor of Cincinnati at 
28 years of age, and Herman Meyers, who has 
been again and again re-elected Mayor of Sa- 
vannah; Simon Wolf, appointed by President 
Grant Recorder of Deeds for the District of 
Columbia; S. W. Rosendale, formerly Attorney- 
General of New York; Julius M. Mayer, the 
present Attorney-General of New York; Ran- 
dolph Guggenheimer, Jacob A. Cantor, Nathaniel 
Elsberg, the Seligmans, Theo. W. Myers, Edward 

72 



IN AMERICAN POLITICS 

Lauterbach and Louis Marshall, who practically 
framed the important charity and judiciary arti- 
cles of the New York State Constitutional Con- 
vention of 1894, and Nathan Straus, whose love 
of humanity has made his name a household word 
in New York, and who declined the Democratic 
nomination for the Mayoralty of the metropolis, 
these are only a few of hundreds of Jews, who 
might be named in every section of our country, 
whose courageous and persistent advocacy of 
righteousness in politics have made the Jew a 
mighty power for good in municipal, State, and 
national life. 



73 



V 

THE JEW IN FINANCE 

N finance the Jew has for four hundred years 

been the factor that supplied the nations of 

the earth with money. The financial system 

of the world, its inventions and perfection, we 

owe to the Rothschilds, who were the first to make 

national loans popular. 

The Jew in finance is invariably a creator and 
not a puller-down. Many of the great fortunes 
which have been made, notably in America, have 
been made by wrecking railroads and other estab- 
lished and incorporated industries. The Jews, 
with comparatively few exceptions, made their 
money as manufacturers and merchants. Polia- 
koff, the Russian railway king; the Pereires, the 
French railway kings ; and the Rothschilds are 
among the few exceptions. Capital and Jew are 

75 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

not synonymous terms; the leading spirits of the 
antagonistic forces — capital and labor — are 
Jews. There are financiers like the Rothschilds, 
and there are socialistic Jews like Lassalle, Marx 
and Singer. The capitalists cannot curse the 
Jews, and the socialists cannot dynamite the Jews, 
without abandoning their very leaders. Samuel 
Gompers, President of the American Federation 
of Labor, with a membership estimated at over 
2,000,000, the largest body of workingmen in the 
United States, possibly in the world, is a Jew. 
At his instance have been passed the eight-hour 
work day for mechanics and laborers in govern- 
ment service, the ten-hour limit for street-railway 
workers, and Labor Day. 

Six hundred thousand Jews living in Africa 
and Asia are poor. The five millions who live in 
the east of Europe are only just raised above 
pauperism, while a goodly proportion are sunk 
below even that level. Among the nearly five 
millions of Russian Jews, only a few names, like 
Gunsburg, Iseman, Kronenberg, Posnanski, Breg- 
man, Zuckerman, the Zabludowskis, Raffalovitch, 

76 



IN FINANCE 

Pollakoff, Ephrussi, Brodsky, de Bloch, and 
Rothstein rise above the general level of hard- 
working poverty. On the Continent, besides the 
Rothschilds we find not more than twenty Jewish 
capitalists. 

About three years ago the Jewish World, of 
New York, published a list so far as could be as- 
certained, of the names of those Jews who have 
amassed fortunes estimated above $1,000,000. 
Taken as a whole, the list may be regarded as 
fairly summing up the success reached by Jews in 
the commercial struggles of the past thirty years 
or more. In all some 115 Jews had reached the 
million mark out of about 4,000 millionaires 
throughout the States. The number has increased 
rapidly within a few years, and from 150 to 175 
is perhaps more nearly the number to-day. 

The Jews are about one-seventy-fifth of our 
population, but since the Jews do not live in the 
country, we must take the city and town popula- 
tion where the Jews live, and of which Jews form 
only one-thirtieth, so. that from this viewpoint 
they are rather under than above their due pro- 

77 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

portion. From brewing- to pork packing, from 
realty to dry goods, from law to liquor, from 
banking to clothing, from newspaper publisher 
to manufacturer, from cotton to tobacco, from 
grocer tO' miner, these Jewish captains of industry 
run through the whole gamut of trade and com- 
merce. 

Among the more than 1,200 millionaires of 
New York there can be found only about 60 Jew- 
ish names. Surely this is a small proportion for 
so great a population — 750,000 Jews in New 
York, the world centre of modern Jewry. 

It is estimated that the Jews in New York City 
have property holdings that exceed $870,000,000 
in the single item of real estate. The Hebrew 
wholesale trade is rated at $950,000,000. Most 
of the big department stores are controlled by 
Jewish capital. 

Originally the Jews were an agricultural peo- 
ple and their civil policy was framed specially for 
this state of things. The sons of Shem built 
their first cities remote from the channels of trade, 
while the race of Ham and Japheth built upon the 

78 



IN FINANCE 

seashore and the banks of the great rivers. But 
the misfortunes of persecution made traders of 
them. Denied citizenship, subject at any time to 
spoHation and expulsion, their only possible 
chance of living was in traffic, in which they soon 
became skilled. They naturally followed the 
great channels of commerce the world over. 
Gentile persecution kept them on the go, and to 
protect their property against Gentile thieves their 
wealth had to be portable, and so they frequently 
turned it into jewels, because they could be most 
securely and most secretly kept, and, in case of 
flight, most easily removed ; this accounts for their 
prominence in the jewelry business from early 
times, and hence, too, their introduction of bills 
of exchange. 

Prevented in many countries from holding 
land, they had no inducement to settle in the coun- 
try. Besides, their religious enactments require 
that the sacred functions of public worship be per- 
formed in the presence of not less than twelve 
males about the age of thirteen, the minimim 
for a congregation; this requires that at least 

79 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

forty souls shall dwell within accessible distance. 
This may explain the fact that so few Jews dwell 
in small villages. That the Jews tend toward 
large cities is not peculiar to fhem. It is a con- 
stant feature of modern statistics. 

The Jew is everywhere pioneering and building 
up States. Dr. Kaufman Kohler has truly said: 
" Commerce and the diffusion of civilization are 
closely allied. Follow all the tides of mod- 
ern civilization, and wherever you see the pros- 
perous conditions of commerce you see civiliza- 
tion on the boom. Jewish commerce centered 
around the great cities the world over, and thus 
opened the gates for Christianity. The flourish- 
ing trade of the Jews, which made Spain the fo- 
cus of mediseval culture, furnished not only the 
great discoverers with the key to unlock the new 
worlds with their inexhaustible treasures, but ex- 
ercised its influence on entire Christianity." 
" Jewish Commerce," says Lecky in his " History 
of Rationalism," " liberated mankind from the 
thraldom of the Church, giving the world the 



80 



IN FINANCE 

much-needed lesson of sound practical common 
sense." 

The Jew, we are told, is only a middleman ; men 
cannot eat their own manufactures as a general 
thing — engines, shovels, linens and woolens, boots 
and gloves, useful as they are in their way, are 
failures as articles of diet. The merchant or even 
the peddler, who takes these inedible things and 
disposes of them is as important a cogwheel in 
the machinery of society as the railroad which 
takes the wheat or the cotton, the coal or the iron 
ore, from regions where it cannot be worked up 
into shape, and places them where the manu- 
factory or the consumer awaits them. 

In their dealings Jews are as honorable as other 
men. At a meeting in New York of the Associa- 
tion of Credit Men, at which but a few Jews were 
present, the late Hon. Wm. L. Strong, former 
mayor of the city, and for many years in the 
wholesale dry goods business, said : " I have lost 
less money selling goods to men who are not 
worth anything than in selling goods to wealthy 
concerns. I have a case in mind of one who began 
8i 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

buying on credit of me one case of goods. In two 
years his credit with us amounted to $30,000. He 
was a Jew. In sixteen years he divided $250,000 
with his partner. I am about one-fourth Jew 
myself. That is, I have more faith in Jews pay- 
ing than I have in Gentiles doing so. We have 
lost four times with the latter to one of the 
former; and of Jews who failed, ten have paid 
100 cents on the dollar to one of the Gentiles." 
This was not said at a gathering of Jews, but 
given as a fact of value to be borne in mind by 
credit men in arriving at decisions. 

The inordinate love of gold is the sin of our 
day, and one of the grave perils of our civiliza- 
tion. The jingle of coin is the snare of all re- 
ligious creeds and races alike. If we loved God 
as we love gold, we should soon be lifted into 
angelhood. The almost frenzied strife to get 
money is never ceasing, and to obtain it many a 
Christian imperils alike his body and his soul ; and 
no matter how despicable the man may be, if he 
gets money, by hook or by crook, and either of 
them is far from being straight, he will be 
82 



IN FINANCE 

idolized, though mentally deficient, vulgar in per- 
son, ugly in features, and coarse in language. 
Let us remember this truth when we sit in judg- 
ment upon the Jewish people. 

The love of money is the curse of Jew and 
Gentile alike. Is not the Christian to blame for 
the money-lending characteristics of the Jew? 
Did not the Christian drive him from all other 
branches of trade with a price on his head, and 
place his home at the mercy of others? Is it 
right now to insult his race and religion, because 
of that fact, in sneeringly calling him a Jew? 
You can throw a stone into any of our Christian 
churches and hit a Shylock. The Jew knows how 
to deal in money, but the Christian gave him the 
points in the game of usury. 

Yes, Jews love money, and so do Christians. 
Look at our American Congress and our State 
Legislatures and tell me if those who sell their 
votes to the corporations for class legislation are 
Jews. Are all who have monopolized the lands, 
watered the railroad stocks, looted life insurance 
companies, and cornered the homes, are they all 

83 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Jews? Who owns the mortgage on your house? 
Nine times out of ten it is a Christian. Ask him 
to be lenient with you and he will demand his 
pound of flesh, and go old Shylock one better by 
sucking the blood along with it.* 

Among Jews as among Christians, there are 
those who think more of the man with bonds in 
his pockets than of the bonds on his feet and 
hands. Among Jews and Christians alike you 
find vulgar, loud-mouthed, money-inflated, of- 
fensive snobs who fill you with insufferable dis- 
gust. 

* The only historical foundation for the pound of flesh story re- 
verses the position of the Jew and Christian. In his life of Pope 
Sixtus v., Gregoris Letti, the biographer, records the following epi- 
sode: In 1587, Paul Mario Secchi, a merchant of Rome, gained the 
information that Sir Francis Drake, the English admiral, had con- 
quered San Domingo. He communicated this piece of_ news to 
Samson Cenado, a Jewish merchant, to whom it appeared incredible, 
and he said: " I bet a pound of flesh that it is untrue." (An 
ancient expression in Italy, used with no intention of literally 
forfeiting a pound of flesh.) " And I lay one thousand scudi 
against it," replied Secchi. A bond was drawn up. The Jew lost 
and the Christian insisted on the literal fulfilment of the bond. 
In his extremity the Jew went to the governor, the governor com- 
municated the case to the Pope, who condemned both to the galleys 
— the one for making the wager and the other for accepting it. 
They released themselves from imprisonment by paying a fine 
toward the hospital of the Sixtus Bridge, which the Pope was then 
rebuilding. 



84 



VI 

JEWS IN THE ARTS 
AND SCIENCES 

HEN we turn to the arts and sciences we 
find that the Jews in America are 
nothing like as conspicuous as the Jews 
in Europe, due mainly to their more recent ef- 
forts along these lines. We cannot boast such a 
poet as Heine, a soldier in the intellectual 
war of liberation which has freed Euro- 
pean thought from its mediaeval shackles, and 
whom Matthew Arnold, the English critic, went 
so far as to term " the most important Ger- 
man successor and continuator of Goethe in 
Goethe's most important line of activity"; nor 
can we lay claim to such novelists as Auerbach, 
Benjamin Disraeli, Nordau and Zangwill; such 

85 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

dramatists as Halevy and D'Ennery; such actors 
as Sonnenthal and Possart, or actresses as Rachel 
and Sara Bernhardt; or such singers as Paul- 
ine Lucca and Caroline Gompertz-Bettleheim ; 
or such litterateurs of essayist type as Lud- 
wig Borne, Karl Blind and Grace Aguilar; or 
such literary critics as Isaac Disraeli and George 
Brandes ; or such musical geniuses as Mendels- 
sohn, Halevy, Offenbach, Goldmark and the 
Strausses ; or such great performers as Rubinstein 
on the piano, or Joachim on the violin. 

Among America's numerous Mrriters of verse 
may be named first of all Emma Lazarus, Peni- 
nah Moise, Miriam Del Banco, Nina Morais- 
Cohen, Cora Wilburn, Dr. S. Solis-Cohen, Mary 
Cohen, Rebekah Hyneman, Felix N. Gerson, Mil- 
ton Goldsmith, and Morris Rosenfeld, the Ghetto 
poet. 

Next to poetry the highest form of literary art 
is the novel. In this branch occur many names, 
among others, Leo C. Dessar, Herman Bernstein, 
Ezra S. Brudno, Alfred J. Cohen, the dramatic 
critic, better known under the nom de plume of 
86 



IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 

Alan Dale, and Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, one 
of the founders of Barnard College — the first 
women's college in New York City. 

Jewish dramatists may follow Jewish novelists. 
Among the earliest and most prominent American 
dramatists was Mordecai M. Noah, and his first 
play enacted in Charleston, South Carolina, was 
" Paul and Elexis, or The Orphans of the Rhine." 
Its name was changed to "The Wandering Boys," 
and in 1820 brought out at the Park Theatre in 
New York with great success, and remained for 
years one of the popular attractions on the stage. 
His other plays were " She Would Be a Soldier, 
or The Plains of Chippewa," " Marion, or the 
Hero of Lake George," " The Grecian Captive," 
etc. 

Samuel B. Judah, born in New York in 
1799, was another celebrated dramatist. In 1838 
Jonas B. Phillips produced a melodrama called 
" Cold Stricken." H. B. Sommer attained dis- 
tinction as the author of " Our Show," and " Help 
Wanted." David Belasco, Sydney Rosenfeld, 



87 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

and Martha Morton are among our most versatile 
dramatists to-day. 

The introduction of opera into the United 
States was due largely to Jewish instrumentality. 
Among famous actors we may name Samuel 
Bernard, David Warfield, Louis Mann, Joseph 
Weber, Lewis Maurice Fields, Joseph P. Adler, 
and Herman, the prestidigitateur. Among 
actresses, Bertha Kalische, Clara Lipman (Mrs. 
Louis Mann), Anna Held, Minnie Seligman, and 
Victoria Maud Peixotto (Victoria Addison). 

Among the great musical conductors may be 
named Sam Franko-, Alfred Hertz and Dr. Leo- 
pold Damrosch, one of the great conductors of 
modern times, whose crowning achievement was 
his successful establishment of German Opera in 
New York. His son, Walter Damrosch, is con- 
tributing more than any other American to-day 
to the cultivation of good music. 

Klaw, Erlanger, Nixon, Hammerstein, Schu- 
bert and the Frohmans practically control the 
theatres of the United States. 

From the drama we may turn to the press. 

88 



IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 

Many of the dailies are either owned or edited by 
Jews, as for instance, Joseph Pulitzer, " The 
World," New York; Adolph S. Ochs and George 
W. Ochs, " The Times," New York, and " Public 
Ledger," Philadelphia; M. H. De Young, 
"Chronicle," San Francisco; Edward Rosewater 
and his son Victor, Omaha "Bee"; Fabian 
Franklin, the " News," Baltimore, and William 
Frisch, the Baltimore " American." 

As painters the Jews have just begun to achieve 
distinction. Henry Hosier, who has won honors 
innumerable at home and abroad, must be named 
first. His " The Return of the Prodigal " was the 
first work of an American artist produced for the 
Luxembourg Gallery. Max Rosenthal and his 
son Albert have become known to fame as etchers 
and portrait painters of high rank. Of illustra- 
tors none is better known than Louis Loeb. 
George D. M. Peixotto, deserves mention because 
of his excellent portraits of William McKinley, 
John Hay and Moses Montefiore. Ben Aus- 
trian's fame was secured by " A Day's Hunt," an 
exquisite game piece, which sold for $2,500, the 

89 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

largest sum ever paid for a still-life painting in 
America. His "A Golden Harvest," a painting 
of seed-corn against a weather-stained old barn 
upon which it hangs, is natural enough to make 
a farmer lift his hat and wipe his eyes. 

Among sculptors Moses J. Ezekiel stands sec- 
ond to none. His works have been exhibited in 
all art centres of Europe. His work, " Re- 
ligious Liberty," at Fairmount Park, Philadel- 
phia, is perhaps the most celebrated of his numer- 
ous productions, and was the first public monu- 
ment erected by Jews in the United States. 
Charles H. Israels, Leopold Eidlitz, Dankmar 
Adler and Arnold W. Brunner are splendid rep- 
resentatives of the genius of their race as archi- 
tects. Mendez Cohen, a pioneer railroad builder, 
ranks as one of the most scholarly and skillful 
civil engineers in the country. Alfred R. Wolf 
is a recognized authority in his specialty of steam 
engineering. Clemens Herschel is a recognized 
authority on hydraulic engineering. 

Among the many Jews holding conspicuous 
professorships in great colleges are : Maurice 
90 




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IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 

Bloomfield and Jacob H. Hollander, of Johns 
Hopkins; E. R. A. Seligman, Adolphe Cohn and 
Richard Gottheil, Columbia ; Charles Gross, Har- 
vard; Morris Jastrow, University o£ Pennsyl- 
vania ; Jacques Loeb and Max L, Margolis, Uni- 
versity of California; Isidor Loeb, University of 
Minnesota; Joseph Jastrow, University of Wis- 
consin; Max Winkler, University of Michigan; 
Adolph Werner, College of the City of New- 
York, and Abram S. Isaacs, University of the 
City of New York. Among the Jews belonging 
to the faculty of the University of Chicago may 
be named Professor Michaelson, head of the de- 
partment of physics, Julius Stieglitz, chemistry, 
Ernest Freund, jurisprudence, Julius M. Mack, 
professor of law, S. H. Clark, elocution, and Emil 
G. Hirsch, rabbinical literature and philology. 
The professorships filled by Jews show that they 
have a peculiar aptitude for the highest political 
sciences, and an innate talent for languages. 
Their dispersion among all nations no doubt con- 
tributed to this. The Jews are the founders of 
our scientific philology. Among the leaders in 

91 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

university circles of a few decades previous were 
Adler, of German dictionary fame, Nordheimer, 
the Orientalist, and Newman, the Hebraist. 

Felix Adler, aside from his professorship in 
Columbia, and lecturer of the Ethical Society, 
has in active operation so many practical edu- 
cational and philanthropic enterprises as to 
make him one of the most useful men in 
New York. Dr. Cyrus Adler is regarded as an 
authority on Oriental history and archaeology. 

Emil Berliner invented the telephone transmit- 
ter. Dr. Koller discovered the use of cocaine. 

As physicians the Jews have always held pe- 
culiarly high positions. In every specialty they 
are so numerous and so eminently successful that 
to publish any names at all would be an invidious 
distinction. 

Medicine of all callings is one in which 
the Jews have been least interrupted. During the 
Middle Ages they were sought for all over the 
world, so that even Popes who issued bulls against 
them and interdicted the practice of medicine, 
would only intrust their bodies to the care of Jew- 
92 



IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 

ish physicians, while there was hardly a king- or 
a queen in all Europe during the Middle Ages but 
employed a Jewish physician. 

As advocates, jurists and writers the Jewish 
lawyers are acknowledged by their Christian 
brethren as their close competitors. And yet not 
many years ago in New York an estimable and 
accomplished gentleman was rejected as a mem- 
ber of the Bar Association " for no other reason 
that can be conceived," indignantly said one of 
the leading members, " except that he was a 
Jew." 

That old and at one time almost universal 
prejudice represented by those few hostile votes 
has rapidly given away to the enlightened feeling 
that a man who is an honorable member of the 
Bar should receive the same recognition which is 
accorded to his Gentile brethren, and his honor 
and ability, regardless of his race or creed, should 
make him a fit member of the association. 



93 



VII 

THE NUMBER OF JEWS IN 
THE UNITED STATES 

THE total Jewish immigration to the United 
States, through the ports of New York, 
Philadelphia and Baltimore, from 1881 to 
July I, 1904, was 827,424. This does not take 
into account immigration through Canada or at 
ports other than those mentioned above. The 
immigration at the same port from July i, 
1903, to June 30, 1904, was 92,801. 

At the time of the revolution the Jewish pop- 
ulation of the United States was about 700 
families. Mordecai M. Noah, in 1818, esti- 
mated the Jewish population of the United 
States as 3,000; after the revolution many re- 
turned to England, others went to the West 

95 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Indies. Isaac Harby, in 1826, estimated that 
there were not over 6,000 Jews in the United 
States. The " American Almanac " in 1840 gives 
the number as 15,000, while M. A. Berk in his 
"History of the Jews," published in 1848, puts 
down 50,000 as the number of Jews in the United 
States, 12,000 residing in New York and 4,000 
in Philadelphia. 

Throughout the period of the Napoleonic wars, 
many obstacles hindered the departure of the Ger- 
man Jews, and for a time afterward, in view of 
the great political concessions which they gained 
from the German rulers in return for their valor 
and heroic sacrifices of life and substance for the 
Fatherland, there was little immigration. It was 
not until the beginning of steam navigation on the 
Atlantic that any considerable Jewish Immigra- 
tion was made to this country. At the time of 
the Civil War there were about 150,000 Jews in 
the United States. In September, 1880, the 
Union of Hebrew Congregations published 221,- 
064 as the number of Jews in the United States. 



96 



NUMBER IN THE UNITED STATES 

Isaac Markens, in 1888, put the number at 
400,000. 

In 1897, according to the estimate of David 
Sulzberger, our Jewish population was 937,800, 
while the American Jewish Year Book for 1905 
gives 1,253,213 as the number, distributed as fol- 
lows : 

Alabama ...... r. -. 7,000 

Arizona 2,000 

Arkansas 3,085 

California 28,000 

Colorado S,8oo 

Connecticut 5,S00 

Dakota, North and South . . 3,500 

Delaware 928 

District of Columbia. . . . 3,500 

Florida 3,000 

Georgia 7,000 

Hawaiian Islands .... 100 

Idaho 300 

Illinois 100,000 

Indiana 25,000 

Iowa 5,000 

Kansas 3,000 

Kentucky 12,000 

Louisiana 12,000 

Maine 5,000 

Maryland 26,500 

Massachusetts 60,000 

Michigan 9,000 

97 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Minnesota 10,000 

Mississippi ...... 3,000 

Missouri ....... 50,000 

Montana 2,500 

Nebraska 3,000 

Nevada 300 

New Hampshire 1,000 

New Jersey 25,000 

New Mexico 1,500 

New York *6oo,ooo 

North Carolina 6,000 

Ohio 50,000 

Oklahoma 1,000 

Oregon 5,500 

Pennsylvania 9S,ooo 

Porto Rico 100 

Rhode Island 3,S00 

South Carolina 2,500 

Tennessee 10,000 

Texas 15,000 

Utah 5,000 

Vermont 700 

Virginia 15,000 

Washington 2,800 

West Virginia 1,500 

Wisconsin 15,000 

Wyoming 1,000 

* New York City has to-day three-quarters of a million of Jews, 
and is the largest Jewish settlement in the world, having more 
Jews than the German empire, two and a half times as many as 
Great Britain, seven times as many as London, eight times as many 
as all France. The proportion of Jews in the city's inhabitants on 
Manhattan Island is one irj four. The Jewish rate of increase is 
several times that of other inhabitants of the city, so that it is easy 
to fix the time at which the Jews will be in the majority. 



98 



NUMBER IN THE UNITED STATES 

Number of Jews the World Over 
Austria-Hungary has 2,076,378 Jews; Ger- 
many 586,948, of whom 392,322 live in Prussia. 
In the British Empire there are 286,498, dis- 
tributed as follows : 

England and Wales .... 176,000 

Scotland 8,200 

Ireland 3,898 

Australasia 16,850 

Canada & British Columbia. 25,000 

Barbadoes 21 

Trinidad 31 

Jamaica 2,400 

India 18,228 

South Africa 30,000 

Gibraltar 2,000 

Malta 173 

Aden 3,800 

Cyprus 119 

Hong Kong ...... 143 

Straits Settlements .... 535 

Holland has 103,988 Jews, one-half of whom 
are to be found in Amsterdam; France, 91,000, 
of whom three-fourths live in Paris; Italy, 35,617, 
of whom the majority inhabit the northern and 
middle portions of the country. There are 

99 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

12,264 Jews in Switzerland; in Belgium, 12,000; 
Denmark, 3,476 ; Sweden and Norway, 3,402 ; 
Luxemburg, 1,201; Spain, 402; and in Portugal 
hardly any, where prior to the fifteenth century 
there lived over half a million Jews. 

In Eastern Europe, in addition to Roumania, 
with 262,348, there are Turkey with 466,362; 
Greece, 5,792, most of them in Corfu; Bulgaria, 
33,717; Servia, 6,000. In Asia, the cradle of 
their race, we find in Turkey 466,361 ; Persia 35,- 
000; Russia, 5,189,401, more Jews than all the 
rest of Europe together, so that half of the de- 
scendants of Abraham are still subject to special 
laws and denied the rights of citizenship; Turk- 
estan and Afghanistan, 14,000, and China, 300. 

In Africa, where they had colonized before the 
Christian era, we find in Egypt, 25,200; Abys- 
sinia (Falashas), 120,000; Tunis, 60,000; Al- 
geria, 57,132; Morocco, 150,000. 

In other countries we find in the Argentine Re- 
public, 22,500; Costa Rica, 43; Bosnia, Herze- 
govina, 8,213; Mexico-, 1,000; Curacao^ 103; 
Peru, 98; Crete, 150; and Venezuela, 411. In 
100 



NUMBER IN THE UNITED STATES 

Jerusalem there are about 25,000 Jews ; and while 
we hope for the day when the holy land will be re- 
stored to the Jew, we cannot believe that Zion- 
ism is the ultimate exaltation of the Jew. The 
whole of Palestine could not sustain the Jewish 
population of the world, about 11,000,000, for it 
is no bigger than Wales. Palestine has very little 
tO' commend it tO' the Jew except its Biblical asso- 
ciations. America, and not Palestine, is becom- 
ing the Jewish Mecca. America is the Zion from 
which will go forth the law. Here is liberty en- 
lightening the world. 



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VIII 

CHARACTERISTICS 
OF THE JEW 

First — Longevity 

OUAKERS, who, in the simplicity of their 
ordinary life, may be supposed to conform 
more closely to religious precepts than 
most religious bodies, are the longest lived peo- 
ple of whom we have record. Next to them 
come the Jews. Reliable statistics justify the con- 
clusion of the learned French physician, Dr. M. 
Levy, that while the average term of life among 
the Gentiles Is twenty-six years, among the Jews 
it is thirty-seven. The life Insurance companies 
who have made the science of statistics a profes- 
sion as the basis of commercial computation, will 
tell you that the life of the average Jew is more 

103 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

than forty per cent more valuable than that of 
any other people, except Quakers and preachers. 

A writer in the Western Medical Review de- 
clares that in spite of the social conditions which 
surround the mass of the Hebrew population 
of the world, and especially in the large cities of 
America, where they form a large percentage of 
the population, the death rate among the Jewish 
inhabitants is but little over half of that of the 
average American population. Professor Wil- 
liam Z. Ripley, in his papers on the racial geog- 
raphy of Europe in the Popular Science Monthly, 
discusses this question very fully. He states that 
if two groups of 100 infants each, one Jewish and 
one of average American parentage, be born upon 
the same day, one-half the Jews will not succumb 
to disease before the expiration of seventy-one 
years. 

According to Lombroso, of i,ooo Jews born, 
217 die before the age of seven years, while 453 
Christians, more than twice as many, are likely 
to die within the same period. In London, ac- 
cording to the testimony of Dr. Behrend, con- 
104 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

sumption is less frequent among the Jews in the 
most squalid dens of Whitechapel than among the 
Christians. 

Alcoholism is very rare among Jews. Dur- 
ing the six years ending May 31st, 1890, al- 
coholism caused in each 100,000 persons of each 
race in New York, 3 1 deaths annually among the 
Irish, 10 among the Germans, 9 among the 
Americans, 6 among the negroes, 3 among 
the Italians and only i among the Jews ( Russian 
and Polish). 

In 1348, when the black death was raging 
throughout Europe, the Jews were exempt from 
the plague, and were accused of poisoning the 
wells of Christians, and under inhuman tortures 
the Jews were forced to confess themselves guilty 
of the crimes charged against them, and then 
were burned alive by the thousands. 

Why are the Jews so' much less subject to con- 
sumption, cholera, croup, typhus, and scrofula? 
Since it is sometimes necessary to kill a dozen 
hogs before a sound pair of lungs can be found, it 
does not seem strange that consumption is so 

105 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

prevalent among the eaters of swine. Close in- 
vestigations have disclosed the fact that nearly 
one-half the animals killed are not kosher, or fit 
to be eaten. Our way of killing meat is, through 
its proneness to become tuberculous, perhaps the 
cause of more disease than all other agencies com- 
bined. 

Second — A Law-abiding People 

Thirty to forty years ago the prisons hardly 
knew of the existence of the Jew. Testimonials 
from that period might be multiplied indefinitely. 
Governor Vance of North Carolina, when pardon- 
ing the only Hebrew in the North Carolina peni- 
tentiary who was serving a ten years' sentence for 
manslaughter, indorsed on the document these 
words : " I take pleasure m saying that I sign 
the pardon in part as recognition of the good and 
law-abiding character of our Jewish citizens, this 
being the first serious case brought to my notice 
on the part of that people." 

About twenty-five years ago Judge Briggs, of 
Philadelphia, in sentencing a Jew to prison for 

1 06 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

burglary said : " You are the first Israelite I 
have ever seen convicted of crime." No Jew 
was convicted of murder in the United 
States during the first century of the Nation's ex- 
istence. In a speech delivered at a Hebrew fair 
in Boston, General B. F. Butler said : " For forty 
years, save one, I have been conversant with the 
criminal courts of Massachusetts and many other 
States, and I have never yet had a Hebrew client 
as a criminal. But, you may say, that was be- 
cause the Hebrews did not choose you for their 
lawyer. But this is not the true answer; for I 
never yet saw a veritable Israelite in the prison- 
er's box, for crime, in my life. And, thinking of 
the matter as I was coming here, I met a learned 
Judge in one of the highest courts of the com- 
monwealth, of more than forty years' experience 
at the bar and bench, and I put the same ques- 
tion to him, and he bore witness with me to the 
same effect. He neither at the bar nor on the 
bench had ever seen any Hebrew arraigned for 
crime;" and while no race has a monopoly of 
virtue or of vice, the Jews to-day, notwithstanding 
107 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

the tremendous immigration in recent years, have 
the best record of any race or religion in America. 
Not more than three or four Jews have been 
hanged in America, although I have known several 
whom a little hanging might improve. When 
Mordecai M. Noah on his accession to the office 
of Sheriff of New York, was taunted with the 
remark, " Pity Christians have to be hanged by a 
Jew ! " he replied, " Pity Christians require hang- 
ing at all !" 

The late M. de Bloch published a series of sta- 
tistics on the Jews in Russia — 5,000,000 people 
scattered among ignorant, fanatical and demor- 
alized moujiks (peasants) who rob and plunder 
at their will. The schools are closed against the 
Jews, lucrative professions are forbidden them, 
and they are huddled together in the least produc- 
tive provinces of the Tsar's realm, their only 
means of subsistence trading with the ignorant 
masses ; yet as de Bloch shows, there is only one 
Jewish criminal to every 2,170 individuals, 
whereas among non-Jews the proportion is one to 
every 715. In the Pale the arrears of taxes are 
108 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

less than in governments which are free from Jews, 
and in the twenty-five governments of the Pale 
every year eight million roubles less are spent in 
drink, a saving which enables the peasants to im- 
prove their land and pay their taxes. In regard 
to trade, Jews are mostly engaged in petty com- 
merce. The Jews in the Pale who carry on busi- 
ness form more than half of the trading popula- 
tion, but the total value of their income is 436 
million roubles against 489 million of the Chris- 
tian minority. The great majority of Jews are 
small retail dealers, who earn from sixty to 
eighty kopeks a day, and In order to make this 
minute profit they have to carry on business from 
twelve to sixteen hours daily. M. de Bloch es- 
timates the number of Jewish handicraftsmen in 
the Pale at eighty per cent of the entire number 
of workingmen, although they constitute only 
twenty per cent of the whole population. 

When I think of the tales, tragedies, and tyran- 
nies the Jews have endured in Russia for over 
two hundred years I feel like bowing in reverence 
before them, especially when I recall that within 
109 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

the past fifty years, in spite of the crimes and 
barbarities which stain the pages of Russian his- 
tory, this synagogue Jew has produced an Anto- 
kolski, whose fiftieth birthday was celebrated, a 
few years since, by artists all over the world; an 
Anton Rubinstein, in whom the piano found its 
greatest master; a Natowitch, editor of the most 
literary and influential Russian paper, Novosti. 
What scholar has not heard of the greatest Rus- 
sian, Oriental and European linguist, Professor 
Khwolson and Dr. Abraham Harkavi ? Or what 
man of affairs has not heard of Sachs, the super- 
intendent of the Russian railroads; or de Bloch, 
already quoted, the greatest authority on finance 
and economics in that Slavonic empire? What 
student of medicine has not heard of Dr. Haffkin, 
who has lately drawn the world's attention to his 
medical discoveries, was rewarded with medals 
by various sovereigns, and who suffered from 
Russian tyranny in his younger days? 

Third — Charity 
In charity shines conspicuously not only the 
no 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

names of Sir Moses Montefiore and the Baron and 
Baroness de Hirsch, whose generosity while living 
made their names fragrant throughout the world, 
and the latter when dying left $100,000,000 to 
be expended in carrying on the various charities 
founded and fostered by the baron and baroness ; 
but if the bigoted authorities of New Amsterdam 
who gave their permission to a few Hebrews 
to settle in their city, " upon condition that they 
should always support their own poor," could see, 
as I have before stated, how well they have kept 
the promise, made more than two hundred years 
ago, those old burghers would open their eyes in 
surprise at the many and magnificent benevolent 
institutions, covering every conceivable case of 
need, which testify to the inborn kindness of the 
Hebrew's heart. 

The Jews of New York alone for their twelve 
leading charities contribute upwards of $1,000,- 
000 a year. 

And as I mingle with these people, and breathe 
the spirit that animates them, and feel their en- 
thusiasm for humanity stirring my own pulses, 
III 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

and see that they are as intent as Christians are 
to do all the good they can, to all the people they 
can, in all the ways they can, I cannot help but 
feel that their Father is our Father, and that the 
spiritual Christ, the essential Christ, must be 
their Lord as well as ours ; and while having- no 
sympathy with those who would proselyte them, 
they practice the Gospel of love as preached by 
Christianity, I can take the good Jew by the hand, 
and with my heart upon the lip, call him brother ! 

The almshouse has no need to provide for the 
Jew. If one Jew gets into trouble, all the others 
stand by him. The divorce court seldom hears 
of him. He is domestic above all men. Drunken- 
ness is not a Jewish vice. The only occupation 
that does not thrive much among the Jews is that 
of the saloonkeeper. To the Potter's Field the 
Jew is absolutely unknown. With the Jew, next 
to the respect for the living comes the veneration 
for the dead. 

Fourth — Religion 

The Jew has given to the world the knowledge 
of the only true and living God. He has given 

112 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

Moses, who in the twelve United States of Israel 
gave to the world the first Republic, and whose 
laws after thirty-three hundred years still form 
the basis of the civilized world's jurisprudence. 
Jesus, the ideal of the race; Jesus, whom 
Spinoza called " the symbol of divine wisdom " ; 
whom Kant and Jacobi held up as the " symbol 
of ideal perfection " ; of whom Strauss said, " he 
remains the highest model of religion within our 
thoughts," and Renan declared " whatever will be 
the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be 
surpassed " — this Jesus was a Jew. Dr. Max 
Nordau voices the more cultured Jewish sentiment 
of our day concerning Christ when he says, 
" Jesus is soul of our soul, even as he is flesh of 
our flesh. Who, then, could think of excluding 
him from the people of Israel? St. Peter will 
remain the only Jew who has said of the Son of 
David, ' I know not the man.' Putting aside the 
Messianic mission, this man is ours. He honors 
our race, and we claim him as we claim the 
Gospels — flowers of Jewish literature and only 
Jewish." 

113 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

Our Bible, the Old as well as the New Testa- 
ment, with the possible exception of the book 
of Job, was written by Jews. What would the 
world have been without the Bible. The coun- 
tries which are indisputably the foremost and 
most enlightened among the nations are Bible 
nations. Where the Bible prevails intelligence 
rules. In every country where the Bible does 
not rule you find man in a semi-barbarous condi- 
tion. The most highly civilized and most intelli- 
gent people, the most just and reasonable laws, 
humane and charitable institutions are to be found 
only in those countries where the Jewish Bible 
rules. Where there is no Bible there is no lib- 
erty. To it we owe more liberty and civilization 
than to any source or power. Ours is the only 
flag that has in reality written upon it : " Liberty, 
Fraternity, Equality," and this great Republic was 
founded by Bible believers. This Book, trans- 
lated 1604-11, spread through England and in- 
spired the revolt against Charles I. in 1642, Its 
" To your tents, O Israel," quickened the Puri- 
tans into action, and its inspiration caused them 
114 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

to ride into battle singing its psalms. It was the 
Bible which lifted the people of Europe into a 
civilized condition and made nations of them. 
All the beneficent changes in the world have 
occurred under the dominion of the Bible. The 
Reformation — one of the sublimest uprisings in 
the whole history of the human race, which de- 
veloped the human mind, promoted civilization, 
liberalized men, destroyed in large measure su- 
perstition, revolutionized religious beliefs, and 
changed the forms of governments — was the 
outgrowth of the study of the Hebrew Bible by 
Martin Luther, under Nicholas de Lyra, the Jew. 
" Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non sal tasset." 

Liberty, charity, and brotherhood find their 
only place of abode in Bible countries. They 
thrive upon the Bible. Their sustenance is the 
Bible. They worship at its august shrine, and 
bow with imperial grandeur before its majestic 
throne. 

This book which attends us in our sickness 
and when the fever of the world is on us, tem- 
pers our grief to finer issues, enables us with a 

115 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

bright eye and without fear to take the death- 
angel by the hand to tread the way through the 
dark valley, bidding farewell to wife, babes and 
home in the consolation of meeting in gladness 
beyond the tomb; this book on which men rest 
their dearest hopes, and which tells us of earthly 
duties and inspires us with heavenly rest and 
heavenly reunion — for this book we are indebt- 
ed to the Jews. 

THE CRUCIFIXION 

But you say the Jews crucified Christ. The 
unhappy actors in that scene were both Jews and 
Gentiles. In the light of orthodox Christian 
teaching the Jews had no option in the matter. 
The shadow of doom was upon them from the 
beginning of days and the growing sense of 
this truth ought, among fair-minded Christians, 
who believe so, make JewisE blame for the cruci- 
fixion a dead issue. 

The rulers who were Romans, and not the 
leaders of the Jews, were responsible for the 
crucifixion of Christ, but in any case how could 
ii6 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

it be the act of the entire nation? The Jews were 
then, as now, scattered throughout the known 
world. It is related that when Sir Moses Mon- 
tefiore was taunted by a political opponent with 
the memory of Calvary and described him as one 
who sprang from the murderers who crucified the 
world's Redeemer, the next morning the Jewish 
philanthropist, whom Christendom has learned 
to honor, called upon his assailant, and showed 
him a record of his ancestors which had been kept 
for two thousand years, and which showed that 
their home had been in Spain for two hundred 
years before Jesus of Nazareth was born ! 

The common people heard Christ gladly. The 
multitude writhing beneath the Roman yoke de- 
sired to take him by force and make him king, 
and when, at last, through the treachery of his 
own disciple he was arrested by the Romans at 
midnight, and after a hurried and illegal trial, 
during which the mob was persuaded to cry for 
his blood, by nine o'clock the next morning he 
was crucified upon a Roman cross. The three 
thousand who believed in a single day on Pente- 
117 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

cost, and the great multitude of priests who were 
obedient to the faith were Jews. All the apostles 
were Jews. The Temple and the synagogues were 
the first preaching places. Christianity was plant- 
ed in Europe and Asia by Jews. In the language 
of Benjamin Disraeli: "It is, no doubt, to be 
deplored that seven millions of the Jewish race 
should persist in believing only a part of their 
religion; but this is owing largely to the nature 
of the persecution they received. When the great 
mass of the Jews, scattered throughout the world, 
first ever heard of Christianity, it appeared to be 
a Gentile religion, accompanied by idolatrous 
practices. And afterwards when Romans and 
Spaniards were converted to Christianity, all that 
the Jews in those nations knew of Christianity 
was, that it was a religion of fire and sword, and 
that one of its first duties was to avenge some 
mysterious and inexplicable crime which had been 
committed years ago by some unheard-of ances- 
tors of theirs in an unknown land. These people 
had never heard of Christ. What they had heard 
from their savage companions, and the Italian 
ii8 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

priesthood which acted on them, was that there 
were good tidings for all the world except Israel ; 
and that Israel, for the commission of a great 
crime of which they had never heard, and could 
not comprehend, was to be plundered, massacred, 
hewn to pieces, and burned alive in the name of 
Christ, and for the sake of Christianity. Is it, 
therefore, wonderful that the great portion of 
the Jewish race should not believe in the most 
important portion of the Jewish religion ? " But 
suppose Jews did accomplish Christ's death, is it 
fair to lay the deed of a few of his ancestors 
against the Jew and his descendants down to the 
sixtieth generation? Would the Jews have put 
Jesus Christ to death had they believed him to be 
the Messiah ? Hear Paul : " Which none of the 
princes of the world knew; for, had they known 
it they would not have crucified the Lord of 
Glory." 

Listen to Jesus on the cross : " Father, forgive 
them (the Romans and Jews alike), for they 
know not what they do." Is it not time that we 



119 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

forgive and forget what Christ forgave more 
than eighteen hundred years ago? 

Can we wonder when we read how the blood- 
thirsty fanatics and tyrants of so-called Christen- 
dom, who had never learned the doctrine that 
Jesus taught, scattered and slaughtered, hunted 
and hated, banished and robbed the Jews, can we 
wonder that the latter refused to embrace a re- 
ligion the representatives of which instigated and 
committed the crimes and barbarities which stain 
the pages of history? To quote Benjamin Dis- 
raeli again : 

" Perhaps in this enlightened age, as his mind 
expands, and he takes a comprehensive view of 
this period of progress, the pupil of Moses may- 
ask himself whether all the princes of the house 
of David have done so much for the Jews as the 
prince who was crucified on Calvary. Had it not 
been for Him, the Jews would have been com- 
paratively unknown, or kno-\yn only as a high 
Oriental caste which had lost its country. ^ Has 
not he made their history the most famous history 
in the world? Has not he hung up their laws 

120 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 

in every temple ? Has not he avenged the victims 
of Titus and conquered the Caesars? What suc- 
cesses did they anticipate from their Messiah? 
The wildest dreams of their rabbins have been 
far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe 
and changed its name into Christendom? All 
countries that refuse the cross v^ither, while the 
whole of the new world is devoted to the Semitic 
principle and its most glorious offspring, the 
Jewish faith; and the time will come when the 
vast communities and countless myriads of Amer- 
ica and Australia, looking upon Europe as Europe 
now looks upon Greece, and wondering how so 
small a place could have achieved such great 
deeds, will still find music in the songs of Zion, 
and still seek solace in the parables of Galilee." 



121 



IX 

ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

IN America the Jew has a double claim to rec- 
ognition — the claim of the man under the 
wide tolerance o^^ the twentieth century, 
and the claim of the American citizen under the 
broad spirit of the American Constitution. 
Has he received the treatment he merits 
as a man, and the rights he deserves as 
a citizen? He is caricatured in the comic 
papers; in our social, professional and even 
political clubs the Jew is blackballed. The 
wealthy Jewish merchant, looking for a summer 
resort will be handed a circular bearing the foot- 
note, " No Jews taken," and I have seen many 
circulars which added, " Dogs not allowed." The 
Jew is excluded from society. Hosts apologize 
123 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

for the stranger by assuring you that " he is a 
good fellow, if he is a Jew." Mass-meetings 
have been held within a few years past in several 
of our cities for the purpose of protesting against 
the continual ill-treatment and persecution to 
which the poor Jews in general and Jewish ped- 
dlers in particular are subjected, not only by 
the hoodlums, but by the school children. In 
Detroit, the Mayor had to make a special appeal 
to the police to prevent violence and injustice. 
In Chicago, Mayor Harrison sent a request to 
the President of the Board of Education, the re- 
sult of which was that the Superintendent of 
Schools issued instructions to the principals of 
all the schools to warn their pupils against call^ 
ing offensive names, throwing stones, or other- 
wise injuring poor Jews. These instructions were 
carried out by means of the principals. Arch- 
bishop Feehan was also approached on the sub- 
ject. 

I have seen Jewish children go home from our 
public schools in tears because of the offensive 
names with which they were taunted. Outrages 
124 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

are frequently perpetrated upon the Jews on the 
East Side of New York under the very noses of 
the pohce — outrages which are a disgrace to 
the metropoHs of the Republic. While we de- 
nounce the Russian atrocities, it is well to remem- 
ber the outrage perpetrated on the occasion of 
Rabbi Joseph's funeral. 

Russian and Roumanian immigrants who are 
striving with might and main to earn a livelihood 
in New York meet with a reception from the deni- 
zens of the streets not at all creditable to the citi- 
zens. A writer in the " Mail " witnessed the fol- 
lowing incident: 

" He stood on the Broadway walk in front of 
Trinity churchyard — a Roumanian Jew, with 
collar-buttons and shoe-laces to sell. Biff, came 
a bundle of yellow slips thrown by a messenger- 
boy, striking him in the eye. He turned, blink- 
ing with pain, but he could not run after the 
miscreant, who, with his fellows, in glee was 
dodging into the crowd. He could leave neither 
his wares nor catch the boys. 

" This is something that happens every day. 

125 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

The lives of vendors on the streets are made mis- 
erable by the small boy. The policeman, too, 
takes his share of fruit, of the best on the stand, 
always. The small boy grabs. Both are thieves 
and work with impunity. 

" Out of some pity at the outrage, and may be 
curiosity, a passerby asked the peddler if his eye 
pained him badly. It was so injured as to be 
bloodshot, and the tears streamed down the poor 
man's face. Some collar-buttons were bought, 
and the man forgot his pain. He had been in 
America a year, but was not a citizen and could 
not vote. How much did he make in a day? 
* Fifty cents, sometimes sixty.' 

"'Wife and children?' 

" ' In Roumania.' 

" The fellow was surprised at being spoken to, 
but he was grateful. There was a very human 
look of thanks in his uninjured eye. The other 
looked indignant still." 

It is not to the credit of the rich and influential 
Jews of our cities that they do not seek to right 
these wrongs heaped upon their poorer brethren. 
126 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

These toiling co-religionists are worthy of the 
influence and assistance of their more fortunate 
brethren. The non-Jewish world has only con- 
tempt for the Jew who does not seek to make 
the name of Jew respected throughout every nook 
and corner of the nation. 

The merchant who cheats his creditor or rivals 
his competitors, if he comes of Hebrew blood, 
has "Jew!" hissed at him. Judaism is made 
responsible for every trick in trade. Do we not 
derive all our notions of integrity from the Jew, 
who first taught the world, " Thou shalt not 
steal " and " Thou shalt not bear false witness " ? 
" It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest." 

It is just as unreasonable to use the word 
" Yankee " for all that meanness which, it is said, 
would cheat in the measurement if given the right 
to sell out the Atlantic Ocean by the pint, as 
to make of the word " Jew " a verb to designate 
taking advantage in trade. I have seen some 
mean Yankees who, in the words of another, 
" with a jack-knife and a pine shingle could in 
two hours' time whittle the smartest Jew in New 
127 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

York out of his homestead in the Abrahamic 
Covenant." But to despise all New Englanders, 
among whom are the largest-hearted and biggest 
brained people on earth, on account of the pro- 
verbial meanness and trickery of some, is cer- 
.tainly unreasonable prejudice. 

In Marlowe's "Jew of Malta," Barabbas is 
made to say: 

" Some Jews are wicked as some Christians are ; 
But say the tribe that I descended of 
Were all in general cast away for sin, 
Shall I be tried for their transgression? 
The man that dealeth righteously shall live." " 

Never was a truer word spoken; every Jew has 
been made responsible for the acts of every other 
Jew. 

With all the rough handling the world has 
given the Jew, it is wonderful that he has no 
more faults. For, as Shakespeare made Shylock 
to say : " He has disgraced me, and hindered 
me of half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked 
at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my 
128 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies — 
and what's his reason ? I am a Jew. Has not a 
Jew eyes? Has not a Jew hands, organs, di- 
mensions, senses, affections, passions? Is he 
not fed with the same food, hurt with the same 
weapon, subject to the same diseases, healed by 
the same rneans, warmed and cooled by the same 
winter and summer as a Christian is? If you 
prick us do we not bleed ? If you tickle us do we 
not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? and 
if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? " 

In justice may the Jew apply to himself the 
words which the shepherdess Sulamit, in the 
" Song of Songs," addressed to the king's courtly 
ladies who looked contemptuously upon her: 
" Black am I, but yet comely. Despite me not be- 
cause I am somewhat black. Is it a wonder that 
I am somewhat disfigured? Persecution's burn- 
ing rays have scorched me fiercely. My mother's 
children have indeed been angry with me. They 
have forced me to keep their vineyard and to 
neglect my own." 

Lord Macaulay has truly said, " The Jew is 
129 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

what we made him." Leroy-Beauheu forcibly 
says : " Their virtues are their own, their vices 
are our making. Their virtues are the result of 
Judaic teaching; their vices are the results of 
circumstances which we have massed about their 
life." Or to use the words of the late Senator 
Vance: " If the Jew is a bad job, in all honesty 
we should contemplate him as the handiwork of 
our own civilization." 

In one' of the finest passages of Cumberland's 
" The Jew," Sheva answers Sir Stephen, who 
cannot conceive that a Jew cannot lend even a 
small sum without the desire of doubling: 

" What has Sheva done to be called a villain ? 
I am a Jew ; what then ? Is that a reason none of 
my tribe should have a sense of pity? You have 
no great deal of pity yourself, but I know many 
noble British merchants that do abound in pity, 
therefore I do not abuse your tribe." 

The prejudice that still exists against the Jew 

must be traced to this as one of the leading 

causes. One is made responsible for all, and all 

are made responsible for one. Paul and Iscariot 

130 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

were both Jews, and yet many a Christian exe- 
crates the nation from whom the betrayer of the 
Master sprung, and seems to forget altogether 
that from the same nation sprang Paul, the great 
apostle. 

The teaching of the Bible can only produce 
good. Why should not the Ten Commandments 
promulgated through Moses, have as powerful 
and as purifying a grasp upon the conscience of 
the Jew as upon that of the Gentile? Is it fair 
to let prejudice against individuals develop into 
prejudice against a race? Let the reproach be 
cast where it belongs, upon the individual, and 
not upon the race. Alexander Dumas said: 
" When I found out that I was black, I deter- 
mined to live so white as to force men to look 
beneath my skin." That ought to be the spirit 
and ambition of every man who belongs to a 
persecuted race. I believe that Judaism has a 
mission, and if I were a Jew I would be proud 
of it. Heine said : " The History of the Jews is 
beautiful; but our modern Jews are standing in 
the light of the ancient ones, who certainly de- 

131 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

serve to be held In greater esteem than either 
Greeks or Romans. I believe if the race as such 
was extinct, and a rumor got abroad that there 
was a specimen of that people living somewhere, 
they would travel a hundred miles to see that 
individual and shake hands with him — and now 
they are shunning us." But people will not shun 
you if you are a good Jew. If I were a Jew, 
I would stand up for my rights; I would be 
neither uppish nor iconoclastic ; I would not sneer 
at the synagogue, nor reject all the traditions and 
customs of Judaism; I would not be close and 
hard in business; I would never take advantage 
in a bargain; I would not higgle for the lowest 
penny when paying, or the highest when making 
a sale; I would not pay a minimum of wages 
and exact the maximum of work; I would not 
be suspicious of anyone's honesty ; I would not be 
small-souled, selfish, grasping, narrow-spirited, 
envious and jealous; I would be large hearted, 
noble spirited, generous to the very utmost of 
self-sacrifice; I would seek to have my life one 
unflawed crystal, to make weighty my influence 
132 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

for truth and nobleness; I would, in short, make 
the word Jew stand for all that is great, good, 
and grand in character. 

Judaism, the mother of Christianity, is still a 
living force, and he is the best Jew whose heart 
beats with the purest pulse towards God and 
m.an, and not he whose head spins the finest 
theological cobwebs. 

" 'Tis not the wise phylatery, nor stubborn taste, 
not stated prayers 
That makes us saints : we judge the tree by what it 
bears." 

The social standards of the Jew are just as 
low and just as fine as other people's in cor- 
responding position. Money often gets ahead 
of the manners of Jew and Gentile alike. No 
people suffer more on account of the vulgar Jews 
than the highminded and refined Hebrew men 
and women. Are there not Gentiles who can be 
described exactly in the same terms ? Where do 
you find the parvenu in American society ? How 
many people do you know who have had two 

133 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

generations of continuous wealth and the condi- 
tions of refined society ? Israel Zangwill has well 
said : " Possibly some few Jews who have 
gained money before they have had time to gain 
culture may be a little loud and a little unpleas- 
ant to many gentlemanly Americans of the same 
income. But exclusion carries with it such tre- 
mendous dangers and such perils of resuscitating 
the old mediaeval savagery which Americans 
came to overthrow, that this deadly weapon of 
social excommunication should be resorted to 
only whenever any other method fails. And as 
one who has closely studied the Jewish character 
in its shades as well as its lights, as one who has 
always written without fear or favor, I can 
assure our squeamish and impatient American 
aristocrats that the disappearance of any unpleas- 
ant social taints in the Jew is only a question of 
one generation. 

" The most offensive Jew who has made money 
is humbly anxious for his children to have better 
social advantages than he had. And from the 
strident and assertive Jews who have grown 

134 




1. FABIAN FRANKLIN 2. WILLIAM FRISCH 

Baltimore News Baltimore American 

3. JOSEPH PULITZER, New York World 

EDWARD ROSEWATER 5. ADOLPH S. OCHS 

Founder and Editor New York Times and 

Omaha Bee Philadelphia Public Ledger 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

coarse in the struggle for existence will come the 
quiet and cultivated ladies and gentlemen who 
will be an enormous force for good in the Amer- 
ica of to-morrow. The same is true of Americans 
at large, not merely Jews." 

The Anti-Semite a Coward 
The anti-Semite is a coward. The cry of the 
Jew-hater is the cry of the beaten man. The 
best man, as a rule, wins. If you want to know 
why the Jews win, read the names published an- 
nually of the public school children who have 
passed the examinations for entrance to the sub- 
freshman class of the College of the City of New 
York. There are the Cohens, Cosinskys, Levys, 
Greenbaums, Sesmorskys, Sapiros, Fleishers, 
Bernsteins, Rosenbergs, Goldsteins, Kopfsteins, 
Czarkowskis, and other names of unmistakable 
Jewish families from Germany and from Rus- 
sia, and very few names of children of American 
descent. Fifty per cent of the students of Colum- 
bia University are Jews ; the College of the City 
of New York is known as " the Jews' College " ; 

135 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

they are busy qualifying themselves for success, 
and while we are reviling them they are broaden- 
ing their minds. 

With the exception of Russia, the Jews are 
more hated in Austria than in any other country 
on earth. Although the Jews form hardly five 
per cent of the total population of the Austrian 
kingdom, they contribute more than nineteen per 
cent to the students at the Austrian universities. 
In the Vienna University forty per cent of the 
students are Jews and thirty per cent, of the 
teachers are Jews. In the Budapest University a 
third of the professors are of Jewish origin. In 
the classical and high-schools of Hungary twenty 
per cent of the pupils are Jews, although they 
constitute but little more than four per cent of 
the population. In the intermediate schools of 
Austria JJ per cent are Jews. Eighty-five per 
cent of the successful lawyers of Berlin are Jews, 
and the percentage is about the same of the great 
and lucrative business of all sorts in Germany. 
In Germany the business is in the hands of the 
Jews ; they are pushing the Christian to the wall, 
136 



ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 

therefore the Jew must be banished. Only a 
decadent race need fear the Jew, and if the 
German or the Frenchman is afraid of him, so 
much the worse for the German or the French- 
man. 

We hear this same cry in New York, Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore, and other cities — that the 
banks, the newspapers, the theatres, the great 
mercantile and manufacturing interests, business 
of the high value and the small are in the hands 
of the Jew. Now, why is the Jew getting on? 
I recently spent a few days in some libraries on 
the east side of New York — libraries patronized 
largely by Russian and Polish Hebrews. Any 
librarian in the city will tell you that these young 
Jews are the most remarkable readers in the city 
— they read, and devour American history and 
biography, philosophy and science. There is little 
call for books in their own language. The desire 
seems to be to leave foreign literature behind 
when the old country is abandoned. 

Everywhere the Jew is disciplining his reason- 
ing powers, and learning how to do better work. 



THE JEWS IN AMERICA 

which insures that success which clamor and com- 
plaining never win. It is not strange that the Jew 
is winning ; it were strange if he did not win. If 
the Jew continues as he has begun, he will hold 
the future. 



138 



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